Thursday, 9 November 2017

Best Software For your systems

Did you just bought or format your system, or you just changed the o.s of your system, if yes you really need these softwares to make your system work in better ways.

Browser.

Browser A browser is an application program that provides a way to look at and interact with all the information on the World Wide Web. The word "browser" seems to have originated prior to the Web as a generic term for user interfaces that let you browse (navigate through and read) text files online.

The best browser I recommend for you is chrome.

Download chrome for your PC here.

Online Backup

Online data backup (remote data backup) is a method of off-site storage in which data is regularly backed up over a network on a remote server, typically hosted by a service provider. Using online backup is very essential as your computer cannot be predicted. Many causes could make you lose your files. So the online backup I recommend is DROPBOX.

Dropbox is a personal cloud storage service (sometimes referred to as an online backup service) that is frequently used for file sharing and collaboration. The Dropbox application is available for Windows, Macintosh and Linux desktop operating systems.

Download Dropbox for your pc here.

Media Player

Media player Software that "plays" audio, video or animation files in the computer. In the Windows world, Windows Media Player is the default player from Microsoft, but iTunes, Real Player and other software are also widely used. The Best Media Player I recommend Is VLC

VLC media player (commonly known as VLC) is a free and open-source, portable and cross-platform media player and streaming media server developed by the VideoLAN project. VLC is available for desktop operating systems and mobile platforms, such as Windows 10 Mobile, Windows Phone, Android, Tizen, iOS.

Download VLC for your PC here.

Text editor.

A text editor is any word processing program that you can use to type and edit text. ... Word Pad and Notepad for Windows and SimpleText and Text Edit for the Mac are common text editors. The best text editor currently is the MICROSOFT WORD.

Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing program – and justifiably.  It is easy to use and allows you to create all different types of documents.

Download Microsoft word latest version for your PC here.


Image Editor

Software that allows images to be edited and also converted to different graphics formats. Image editors typically deal with only bit mapped images such as GIFs, JPEGs and BMPs; however, some editors support both bitmaps and illustrations (see vector graphics). Common functions are manually cropping and resizing the image and using "filters" to adjust brightness, contrast and colors. Myriad filters are available for special effects (see image filter). Red eye removal is included in editors specialized for photos. The Best Image editing tool is PAINT.

It comes with the OS windows of your system. Other recommended software instead of paint is 

Coreldraw.
Download the latest version of Coreldraw for your PC here.

Pdf Reader.

PDF is also an abbreviation for the Netware Printer Definition File. PDF (Portable Document Format) is a file format that has captured all the elements of a printed document as an electronic image that you can view, navigate, print, or forward to someone else. The best and most recommended pdf reader is the ADOBE READER. 

Adobe Reader is a free program for viewing and printing PDF documents. It includes an Adobe Acrobat browser plugin for displaying PDF documents within Firefox and other Web browsers. (By default, Firefox uses its built-in PDF Viewer.)

Download the latest version of ADOBE READER for your PC here.

Security

Computer security, also known as cyber security or IT security is the protection of computer systems from the theft and damage to their hardware, software or information, as well as from disruption or misdirection of the services they provide. The best security for PC is Avast.

Check toknow more about the best security for your devices.

Screenshot tool

A screenshot, or screen capture, is a picture taken of your computer's desktop. This may include the desktop background, icons of files and folders, and open windows. ... Both the Mac OS and Windows operating systems make it easy to take screenshots.

I recommend screencaptor for your pc screen shot.

Download the latest version of SCREENCAPTOR for your PC here.

Backup tool
Backup software is computer programs used to perform backup; they create supplementary exact copies of files, databases or entire computers.

You can find the best backup tool for your PC here.

Archive utility tool

A file archiver is a computer program that combines a number of files together into one archive ... Users of the Unix tools use additional compression tools, such as gzip, bzip2, or xz, to compress thearchive file after ... Modifying one means the file needs to be put back into archive and the archiverecompressed again. The best file archive utility tool is WINRAR

WinRAR is a trialware file archiver utility for Windows, developed by Eugene Roshal of win.rar GmbH. It can create and view archives in RAR or ZIP file formats, and unpack numerous archive file formats.

Download the latest version of WINRAR for your PC here.

Messaging tools.

Messaging tools (also called electronic messaging tools) are the tools used in the creation, storage, exchange, and management of text, images, voice, telex, fax, e-mail, paging, and Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) over a communications network.

Most recommended messaging tools is the FRANZ.

Franz is a very interesting program for any user that spends a significant amount of time on their PC. Thanks to Franz you'll be able to respond to any message...

Download the latest version of FRANZ for your PC here.

OTHER TIPS INCLUDE.

  • Using the best drivers to drive the system
  • Watch the amount of games installed on the stall
  • Using an Usb security is also a good idea.

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Are you looking for a better antivirus for your phone? Check this Ten Antivirus for you r mobile phone...


Android is by far and away the most popular mobile operating system, being installed on the vast majority of devices out there, so it’s no surprise that the vast majority of mobile malware is targeted at Google’s OS. And often that malware is hidden inside bogus apps.

For this reason, by default most Android devices do not allow installation of software from unknown sources such as app stores outside of the officially sanctioned Google Play. You’re running big risks grabbing programs from such third-party stores.

At any rate, whatever software you use with your Android phone or tablet, you’d be wise to have an antivirus or a security app installed on your device. In this article, we’re going to highlight 10 of the best antivirus efforts.

Many of them do much more than run automatic scans, and they’ll actively try to prevent malicious web pages and files from being opened or downloaded in the first place.

1. AVL



AVL is a former winner of the AV-Test (a well-respected independent antivirus testing outfit) award for best protection of mobile devices. Its features include not only an antivirus database (of course) but a scanner capable of detecting any kind of executable file making its way onto your device.

Other handy features include a call blocker to prevent malicious numbers from contacting you, as well as an anti-phishing feature to stop harmful websites from loading in the first place. The app is also designed to be light on resources, which is always handy when you’re struggling for battery life.

You can download AVL here


2. Avast Mobile Security

Antivirus giant Avast has used its considerable skills to create an app which goes above and beyond a mundane scanner. Extra features in the free version include a call blocker, firewall and even an anti-theft measure allowing you to remotely lock or wipe your Android device if it goes missing.

The app used to be paid but is now free, supported by ads. You can pay a small monthly or yearly premium to remove these. Another very useful premium feature is ‘in-app locking’ whereby your device will ask for a PIN before opening certain apps. This prevents malware from launching apps such as internet banking automatically.

You can download Avast Mobile Security here

3. Bitdefender Antivirus Free

Bitdefender is a big name in the security community, and its free antivirus program is extremely lightweight. In fact, it doesn’t run in the background which frees up system resources, although this does mean you have to schedule scans or run them manually to be safe. This said, any new apps downloaded to your device are automatically scanned.

Another advantage of this app is that it’s ready to go as soon as it is installed – no additional configuration is required.

If you require extra security, sign up for a free 14-day trial of Bitdefender Mobile Security. This includes the basic antivirus as well as real-time protection for the Chrome browser and anti-theft features.

You can download Bitdefender Antivirus Free here

4. McAfee Security & Power Booster Free



 McAfee is another well-known name when it comes to antivirus software for the PC, and this Android app doesn’t disappoint. Besides the antivirus scanner itself, free features include tracking a lost device as well as locking and wiping it remotely. If your device is stolen, the app can even take a picture of the thief…

Other features include the ability to scan apps to check if they leak sensitive information, and lock them if necessary. McAfee will also block access to potentially malicious websites, as well as allow you to keep a blacklist of nuisance callers and texters.

The paid Premium version of the app allows you to remove ads and receive phone support.
You can download McAfee Security & Power Booster here

5. Kaspersky Mobile Antivirus



Kaspersky has a reputation up there with the big players likeBitdefender. The free version of its security app has some impressive features, and it’s very good at picking up on malware, with a detection rate of 99.9% according to AV-Test’s trials from last November.

Kaspersky Antivirus & Security will also try to block any malicious sites or links before you click through to them, preventing an infection from happening in the first place.

On downloading the app you’ll be given a free 30-day trial of Kaspersky Internet Security (it costs $14.95 a year thereafter – £9.99, or around AU$20). The premium version of the app has extra security features such as call and text filtering.

You can download Kaspersky Mobile Antivirus here

6. Sophos Free Antivirus and Security
Sophos’ free antivirus app has previously won the AV-Test award for best protection in 2015. Unlike other free scanners, Sophos doesn’t contain any adverts. It does, however, block websites with potentially spammy or illegal content.

Apps are scanned for malware or otherwise harmful content as they are installed and Sophos alerts you if they might leak any sensitive information. The antivirus scanner can be scheduled to scan files and folders periodically, and the malware database itself is updated daily.

The app also includes a handy QR code scanner which can be used to set up secure Wi-Fi connections. There’s also an authenticator that can generate one-time passwords for two-factor authentication.
You can download Sophos Free Antivirus and Security here

7. Norton Security and Antivirus

This free app from Norton was able to detect 100% of all Android malware when benchmarked by AV-Test a few months ago. The scanner is powered by Norton Mobile Insight and can detect viruses inside apps and files, then remove them automatically.

Other useful security features include the ability to lock your phone via an SMS message, or if the SIM card is removed. You can also choose to remotely lock your device if it goes missing (or have it locked after 10 unsuccessful attempts to enter the passcode).

The app comes with a 30-day trial of Norton Mobile Security which boasts extra features such as SafeWeb filtering that blocks malicious websites.

You can download Norton Security and Antivirus here

8. Trend Micro Mobile Security & Antivirus
Trend Micro’s effort not only scans new apps for malware, but prevents newly installed apps from accessing other programs, which can be useful for device admins and parents.

There’s also a built-in privacy scanner for Facebook which warns you if your profile settings are displaying sensitive personal information.

The free version includes a 7-day trial of premium features. These include a malware blocker which is capable of scanning apps before they are even installed to pre-emptively avoid any potential infection. There are also utilities for safe surfing, as well as call and text filtering.
You can download Trend Micro Mobile Security & Antivirus here

9. AhnLab V3 Mobile Security

This security app from South Korean AhnLab is not as famous as the others on this list, but nonetheless has very high detection rates for Android malware according to AV-Test (99.6%) and runs well even on older Android devices. Indeed, it has a built-in booster to help speed up your phone’s performance.

The app comes with a free 10-day trial of the anti-malware features which proactively search for vulnerabilities and warn you if apps could potentially leak sensitive personal information.

Other handy privacy features include a hidden gallery for personal photos and a privacy cleaner to securely clear your browsing history. Anti-theft measures include an alarm which kicks in if the device is reported lost or the SIM card is replaced. You can also remotely track, lock and wipe your device.
You can download AhnLab V3 Mobile Security here

10. Avira Antivirus Security

Avira’s mobile offering will not only scan files you download and content on your phone’s memory, but it can also scan external storage such as your SD card. Applications are rated using a privacy scale to help you easily decide how much they can be trusted with your data.

The integrated ‘Identity Safeguard’ regularly checks if the email addresses in your contacts list have been involved in any major data breaches. The app is controlled by a web-based management portal, which is extremely useful if you want to set up a common policy over multiple Android devices.

The premium version includes better support, automatic blocking of malicious websites, and more frequent updates.

For now i use 360 mobile security on my mobile phone only issue i got is the updates.

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Trump: Time 'quickly running out' on North Korea

In the latest stop on his Asia tour, the US President tells China that "all nations must come together" against North Korea.

09:09, UK,Thursday 09 November 2017
Image:Donald Trump also spoke in South Korea about North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un

By Sharon Marris, News Reporter

Donald Trump has called on the Chinese President to put more pressure on North Korea.

Speaking at a business event in Beijing, Mr Trump said China could fix the problem of North Korea.

Tensions between Pyongyang and its US-allied neighbours have been high due to the reclusive country's determination to pursue nuclear weapons.

He said: "The US is committed to the complete and permanent de-nuclearisation of North Korea.

"China can fix this problem easily and quickly and I am calling on China and your great president to hopefully work on it very hard.

"If he works on it hard, it will happen, there's no doubt about it."

Image:Donald Trump says China needs to do more about North Korea

The US President's words come during an official tour of Asia, which has already taken in Japan and South Korea, and been dominated by the issue of North Korea.

Mr Trump told the Chinese: "All nations must come together to ensure this rogue regime cannot threaten the world with its nuclear weapons.

"Time is quickly running out.

"We must act fast and hopefully China will act faster and more effectively on this problem than anyone.

"I'm also calling on Russia to help rein in this this potentially very tragic situation."

While in South Korea, Mr Trump had offered North Koreans a "path towards a much better future", having urged the regime to "come to the table" and "make a deal" over its nuclear programme.

Image:On the agenda in Beijing was a military parade with China's president Xi Jinping

:: Analysis: Tour of Asia to test Trump's diplomatic skills

Speaking after Mr Trump, Mr Xi did not mention North Korea but in a later speech he said China would persist with the goal of denuclearising the Korean peninsula and solving the issue through talks.

Mr Xi focused instead on China's economic progress and made a promise to be more open and transparent.

He said he would be "unswervingly committed to reform and opening up".

He said that foreign companies doing business in China would find it "more open, more transparent and more orderly".

In his speech, Mr Trump had described the trading relationship between the two countries as "very one-sided" and "unfair".

Image:Donald Trump is in China as part of his Asian tour, with the next stop Vietnam

He said: "I don't blame China. After all, who can blame a country for being able to take advantage of another country for the benefit of its citizens? I give China credit.

"But in actuality I do blame past administrations for allowing this out of control trade deficit to take place and to grow.

"We have to fix this because it just doesn't work, for our great American companies and it doesn't work for our great American workers - it is just not sustainable."

Mr Trump's next stop is Vietnam on 10 November, where he will speak at the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit.

The final stop on his tour is in the Philippines.

Keep up with latest updates from thetelefuture
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Driverless bus in crash after two hours on road in Las Vegas


Human error is blamed for the unfortunate collision in Las Vegas, with a lorry driver reversing into the futuristic shuttle bus.

08:48, UK,Thursday 09 November 2017

Image:The driverless bus smoothly rolls into a parking space in Las Vegas

A driverless shuttle bus has been involved in a crash less than two hours after it was launched in Las Vegas.


Police said a lorry driver who reversed into the electric vehicle was responsible for the prang, which did not cause any injuries.


City spokesman Jace Radke said the shuttle stopped when it sensed the lorry was approaching, but the larger vehicle kept moving.

Image:Passengers on the driverless bus before the accident

The lorry hit the front bumper of the bus, but there was no visible damage and the shuttle did two more circuits of its route after the accident.

The collision happened soon after an unveiling ceremony to promote what officials described as the first self-driving shuttle pilot project aimed at the US public.

Image:A sign in the back window reads: 'Look ma, no driver'

The bus, which can hold up to 12 passengers, has an attendant and computer monitor but no steering wheel or brake pedals.

It uses GPS and electronic kerb sensors to navigate the roads.

Before the crash near the Fremont Street entertainment district, dozens of people had queued up for a free journey in downtown Las Vegas.
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'Zombie star' baffles scientists by surviving supernovae

An artist's impression shows dust forming around a supernova explosion. Pic: ESO/M. KornmesserA 'zombie star' which refuses to die has left astronomers stumped and questioning everything they know about supernovae.


The star, which is 500 million light years away, was discovered in 2014 as it exploded and resembled a basic supernova that was getting fainter over time.

But astronomers at the Las Cumbres Observatory in California were surprised to see it getting brighter a few months later.

The star named iPTF14hls, which also exploded in 1954, has brightened and dimmed five times since its latest explosion.

Usually, a supernova fades within 100 days but the 'zombie' star has been going strong for more than 1,000 days. It is currently fading slowly.

The baffling find was published in the Nature journal.

Astrophysicist Iair Arcavi, who led the study, called the discovery "very surprising" and "very exciting".

He said: "We thought we've seen everything there is to see in supernovae after seeing so many of them, but you always get surprised by the universe. This one just really blew away everything we thought we understood about them."



Astronomers say the phenomenon could be down to the explosions happening so frequently that they run into one another or that it is a result of a single explosion getting brighter and fainter.

Another theory is that the star, which was once 100 times larger than the sun, was so big and its core so hot that an explosion blew away its outer layers and left the centre intact to be able to repeat the process.

Avi Loeb, Harvard University's astronomy chairman, was not involved in the study but offered his own theory.

He said a black hole or magnetar - a neutron star with a strong magnetic field - might be behind the never-before-seen behaviour.

It is not known how unique the 'zombie' star is but no others have ever been observed.

Mr Arcavi said: "We could actually have missed plenty of them because it kind of masquerades as a normal supernova if you only look at it once.

"Eventually, this star will go out at some point - energy has to run out
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How to raise successful kids without overparenting


Moms and dads often feel like they can’t win. If they pay too much attention to their kids, they’re helicopter parents; too little, and they’re absentee parents. What’s the happy medium that will result in truly happy, self-sufficient kids? Here are five tips by people who knows more about CHILD GROOMINGs

1. Give your kids things they can own and control.
“Enlist the children in their own upbringing. Research backs this up: children who plan their own goals, set weekly schedules and evaluate their own work build up their frontal cortex and take more control over their lives. We have to let our children succeed on their own terms, and yes, on occasion, fail on their own terms. I was talking to Warren Buffett's banker, and he was chiding me for not letting my children make mistakes with their allowance. And I said, ‘But what if they drive into a ditch?’ He said, ‘It's much better to drive into a ditch with a $6 allowance than a $60,000-a-year salary or a $6 million inheritance’.“

-- Bruce Feiler, writer and author of The Secrets of Happy Families

2. Don’t worry about raising happy kids.
“In our desperate quest to create happy kids, we may be assuming the wrong moral burden. It strikes me as a better goal, and, dare I say, a more virtuous one, to focus on making productive kids and moral kids, and to simply hope that happiness will come to them by virtue of the good they do and the love that they feel from us. I think if we all did that, the kids would still be all right, and so would their parents -- possibly in both cases even better.”

-- Jennifer Senior, writer and author of All Joy and No Fun

3. Show your kids that you value who they are as people.
“Childhood needs to teach our kids how to love, and they can't love others if they don't first love themselves, and they won't love themselves if we can't offer them unconditional love. When our precious offspring come home from school or we come home from work, we need to close our technology, put away our phones, look them in the eye and let them see the joy that fills our faces when we see our child. Then, we have to say, ‘How was your day? What did you like about today?’ They need to know they matter to us as humans, not because of their GPA.”

-- Julie Lythcott-Haims, former dean of freshmen 
at Stanford University and author of How to Raise an Adult

4. Teach your kids to help out around the house -- without being asked.
“We absolve our kids of doing the work of chores around the house, and then they end up as young adults in the workplace still waiting for a checklist, but it doesn't exist. More importantly, they lack the impulse, the instinct to roll up their sleeves and pitch in and look around and wonder, How can I be useful to my colleagues? How can I anticipate a few steps ahead to what my boss might need?”

-- Julie Lythcott-Haims

5. Remember that the little things matter.
“Quite small things that parents do are associated with good outcomes for children -- talking and listening to a child, responding to them warmly, teaching them their letters and numbers, taking them on trips and visits. Reading to children every day seems to be really important, too. In one study, children whose parents were reading to them daily when they were five and then showing an interest in their education at the age of 10 were significantly less likely to be in poverty at the age of 30 than those whose parents weren't doing those things.”

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4 thought-provoking questions to spark conversation

We’re on the brink of a future beyond what we can fathom -- a future with driverless cars, designer babies, intelligent robots, and digital doppelgangers. Who will you choose to be in that future? How will it change you?

Here are four fascinating questions to get you thinking. See what you would choose -- and ask your friends what they think too.

1. If you could upload your brain to a computer, would you do it?
Imagine this: Your future self uploads your brain to a computer, creating a complete digital replica of your mind. But that version of you is smarter -- learning faster than you ever could -- and starts to have experiences that the “real” you has never had, in a digital world that you have never seen.


Would you be game to try it, and why? Would that digital version of you still be “you?” Should you be free to have a relationship with someone’s digital replica? Are you responsible for the choices your replica makes?

2. Should parents be able to edit their babies’ genes?
If you had a baby with a congenital heart defect and a doctor could remove the gene, would you do it to save your baby’s life? Most people probably would.

But take that another step further: Would you make your baby a little more intelligent? A little more beautiful? Should you be able to choose their sexuality? Their skin tone? What if only the rich could afford it? What if you chose not to edit your child, but other parents did?

3. Should a driverless car kill its passenger to save five strangers?

A driverless car is on a two-way road lined with trees when five kids suddenly step out into traffic. The car has three choices: to hit the kids, to hit oncoming traffic or to hit a tree. The first risks five lives, the second risks two, and the third risks one. What should the car be programmed to choose? Should it try to save its passenger, or should it save the most lives?


Would you be willing to get in a car knowing it might choose to kill you? What if you and your child were in the car, would you get in then? And should every car have the same rules, or should you be able to pay more for a car that would save you?

4. What morals should we program into intelligent machines?
Picture a world with intelligent robots -- machines smarter than you’ll ever be -- that have no idea how to tell the difference between right and wrong. That’s a problem, right? But giving machines moral values poses an even stickier problem: a human has to choose them.

If we’re going to program morality into intelligent machines, which values should we prioritize? Who should decide which moral beliefs are the most “right”? Should every country have to agree to a set of core values? Should the robot be able to change to change its own mind?
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4 tips for talking to people you disagree with

Many people have asked this questions all time, How do i face people i do not agree saying a word with? Many really don't know how to face their audience they challenge. Here are tips to challenge and talk to them.

1. Don’t assume bad intent.

Assuming ill motives almost instantly cuts us off from truly understanding why someone does and believes as they do. We forget they're a human being with a lifetime of experience that shaped their mind, we get stuck on that first wave of anger, and the conversation has a very hard time ever moving beyond it.

But when we assume good or neutral intent, we give our minds a much stronger framework for dialogue.

2. Ask questions.


When we engage people across ideological divides, asking questions helps us map the disconnect between our differing points of view. That's important because we can't present effective arguments if we don't understand where the other side is actually coming from and it gives them an opportunity to point out flaws in our positions.

But asking questions serves another purpose; it signals to someone they're being heard. When my friends on Twitter stopped accusing and started asking questions, I almost automatically mirrored them. Their questions gave me room to speak, but they also gave me permission to ask them questions and truly hear their responses. It fundamentally changed the dynamic of our conversation.

 3. Stay calm.

This takes practice and patience, but it's powerful. When my husband was still just an anonymous Twitter acquaintance, our discussions frequently became hard and pointed, but we always refused to escalate. Instead, he would change the subject. He would tell a joke or recommend a book or gently excuse himself from the conversation. We knew the discussion wasn't over, just paused for a time to bring us back to an even keel.

People often lament that digital communication makes us less civil, but this is one advantage that online conversations have over in-person ones. We have a buffer of time and space between us and the people whose ideas we find so frustrating. We can use that buffer. Instead of lashing out, we can pause, breathe, change the subject or walk away, and then come back to it when we're ready.

 4. Make the argument.

This might seem obvious, but one side effect of having strong beliefs is we sometimes assume that the value of our position is, or should be, obvious and self-evident; that we shouldn't have to defend our positions because they're so clearly right and good; that if someone doesn't get it, it's their problem -- that it's not my job to educate them. But if it were that simple, we would all see things the same way.
  
when making an argument don't raise your voice.
As kind as my friends on Twitter were, if they hadn't actually made their arguments, it would've been so much harder for me to see the world in a different way. We are all a product of our upbringing, and our beliefs reflect our experiences. We can't expect others to spontaneously change their own minds. If we want change, we have to make the case for it.
Lastly, Don't ever end up without giving a good point and trying to convince the audience. when your audience are convinced they respect you.

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Tuesday, 7 November 2017

4 tips to help you achieve your goals


What is one goal you wish you could accomplish? Chances are, you have no problem naming it, so what holds you back from achieving it?

Life has a nasty habit of interrupting the best-laid plans, but more often than not, it’s our own minds that get in the way of our goals. We make a litany of excuses for why those goals don’t get checked off our lists, and we become our own worst enemies.

Let this be the end of all that.

Here are a few suggestions -- and a dose of tough love -- to help you reach your goals.

1. Define your fears instead of your goals.
Think about what you’re putting off for the “right moment.” What holds you back? What are you afraid of? Write down the worst things that might happen if you fail, suggests investor and author Tim Ferriss. Then think about what you’ll do if they happen and how you could prevent them.

Tim calls this “fear-setting,” a practice that can help you break the cycle of self-paralysis. “I can trace all of my biggest wins and biggest disasters averted to fear-setting,” he says.

2. Banish the word “fine.”
Why are your goals on the back burner? Maybe because of the F-word: “fine.” That dirty word lulls you thinking that subpar situations -- feeling unfulfilled at work, carrying an extra 50 pounds, having a ho-hum relationship -- are good enough that you can put off the effort to change them.

Consider this your wake-up call: it’s time to stop settling for “fine” and set your sights on “good” or “great” instead.

3. Approach your obstacles with curiosity.
You may find yourself sidetracked at times by a little voice that asks, “Wouldn’t it be more fun to watch Netflix for the next six hours?” That’s not a feeling to fight -- it’s a feeling to examine. Curiosity is your best weapon against distraction, says psychiatrist Judson Brewer.

When you find yourself procrastinating, look at what’s going on in your mind. Are you bored? Scared? Frustrated? That insight can help you figure out what you need to resolve to get back on track.

4. Embrace your near wins.
Behind every triumph, there are countless near wins -- those times when you come close to success but don’t quite get there. Those are valuable, says historian Sarah Lewis. They show you what worked and what you can improve, and they give you a chance to iterate.

“Mastery is not a commitment to a goal but to a constant pursuit,” she says. By embracing your near wins, you can push yourself to attain more than you ever imagined.
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Can you teach a computer to be funny?


Here’s one example of a machine-generated joke: “Why did the chicken cross the road? To see the punchline.” Learn about the work that scientists are doing to make AI more LOL.

When it comes to predicting advances in AI, the popular imagination tends to fixate on the most dystopian scenarios: as in, If our machines get so smart, someday they’ll rise up against humanity and take over the world.

But what if all our machines wanted to do was crack some jokes? That is the dream of computational humorists -- machine learning researchers dedicated to creating funny computers.

While there’s intrinsic value in cracking the code for humor, this research also holds practical importance. As machines occupy larger and larger chunks of our lives


We’ve all experienced the frustration caused by a dropped phone call or a crashed program. Your computer isn’t a sympathetic audience during these trials and tribulations; at times like these, levity can go a long way in improving our relationship with technology.

So, how do you program a computer for laughs? “Humor is one of the most non-computational things. In other words, there’s no formula for funny-ness. While you can learn how to bake a cake or build a chair from a set of instructions, there’s no recipe for crafting a great joke. But if we want to imbue our machines with wit, we need to find some kind of a recipe; after all, computers are unflinching rule-followers. This is the great quagmire of computational humor.

To do this, you have to pick apart what makes a particular joke funny. Then you need to turn your ideas into rules and codify them into algorithms. However, humor is kind of like pornography ... you know it when you see it. A joke told by British comedian Lee Dawson exemplifies the difficulties of deconstructing jokes, according to Misra. It goes: “My mother-in-law fell down a wishing well the other day. I was surprised -- I had no idea that they worked!” It’s not so easy to pick out why this joke works (and some mothers-in-law would argue it does not work at all). For starters, there’s a certain amount of societal context that goes with understanding why a mother-in-law going down a well is funny. Does this mean that creating a joke-telling computer would require the uploading and analyzing of an entire culture’s worth of knowledge and experience?

Some researchers have been experimenting with a different approach. Abhinav Moudgil, a Ph.D. student at the International Institute for Information Technology in Hyderabad, India, works primarily in the field of computer vision but explores his interest in computational humor in his spare time. Moudgil has been working with a recurrent neural network, a popular type of statistical model. The distinction between neural networks and older, rule-based models could be compared to the difference between showing and telling. With rule-based algorithms, most of the legwork is done by the coders; they put in a great deal of labor and energy up-front, writing specific directions for the program that tells it what to do. The system is highly constrained, and it produces a set of similarly structured jokes. The results are decent but closer to what kids -- not adults -- might find hilarious.

Here are two examples:
  • “What is the difference between a mute glove and a silent cat? One is a cute mitten and the other is a mute kitten.”
  • “What do you call a strange market? A bizarre bazaar.”

With neural networks, data does the heavy lifting; you can show a program what to generate by feeding it a data set of hundreds of thousands of examples. The network picks out patterns and emulates them when it generates text. (This is the same way computers “learn” how to recognize particular images.) Of course, neural networks don’t see like humans do. Networks analyze data inputs, whether pictures or text, as strings of numbers, and comb through these strings to detect patterns. The number of times your network analyzes the data set -- called iterations -- is incredibly important: too few iterations, and the network won’t pick up enough patterns; too many, and the network will pick out superfluous patterns. For instance, if you want your network to recognize flamingos but you made it iterate on a set of flamingo pictures for too long, it would probably get better at recognizing that particular set of pictures rather than flamingos in general.

Moudgil created a data set of 231,657 short jokes culled from the far corners of the Internet. He fed it to his network, which analyzed the jokes letter by letter. Because the network operates on a character level, it didn’t analyze the wordplay of the jokes; instead, it picked up on the probabilities of certain letters appearing after other letters and then generated jokes along similar lines. So, because many of the jokes in the training set were in the form “What do you call…” or “Why did the…”, the letter “w” had a high probability of being followed by “h”, the letter pair “wh” had high probabilities of being followed by “y” or “a,” and the letter sequence “wha” was almost certainly followed by “t.”

His network generated a lot of jokes -- some terrible, some awful and some okay.Here’s a sample:

“I think hard work is the reason they hate me.”

“Why can’t Dracula be true? Because there are too many cheetahs.”

“Why did the cowboy buy the frog? Because he didn’t have any brains.”

“Why did the chicken cross the road? To see the punchline.”

Some read more like Zen koans than jokes. That’s because Moudgil trained his network with many different kinds of humor. While his efforts won’t get him a comedy writing gig, he considers them to be promising. He plans to continue his work, and he’s also made his dataset public to encourage others to experiment as well. He wants the machine learning community to know that, he says, “a neural net is a way to do humor research.” On his next project, Moudgil will try to eliminate nonsensical results by training the network on a large set of English sentences before he trains it on a joke dataset. That way, the network will have integrated grammar into its joke construction and should generate much less gibberish.

Other efforts have focused on replicating a particular comedian’s style. He Ren and Quan Yang of Stanford University trained a neural network to imitate the humor of Conan O’Brien.

Their model generated these one-liners:

“Apple is teaming up with Playboy in the self-driving office.”

“New research finds that Osama Bin Laden was arrested for President on a Southwest Airlines flight.”

Yes, the results read a bit more like drunk Conan than real Conan. Ren and Yang estimate only 12 percent of the jokes were funny (based on human ratings), and some of the funny jokes only generated laughs because they were so nonsensical.

These efforts show there’s clearly a lot of work to be done before researchers can say they’ve successfully engineered humor. “They’re an effective illustration of the state of computational humor today, which is both promising in the long term and discouraging in the short term,” says Misra. Yet if we ever want to build AI that simulates human-style intelligence, we'll need to figure out how to code for funny. And when we finally do, this could turn our human fears of a machine uprising into something we can all laugh about.

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