One of the most powerful strategies I’ve found for improving my life is the idea of systems. Basically, rather than setting a goal for yourself, you develop a system of some kind, a set of daily actions that gradually nudge you toward that goal. For example, instead of saying “I’m going to lose 100 pounds this year,” you ask yourself, “What can I sustainably do each day to lead to gradual but significant weight loss over the course of this […]

The post Financial Success Within a System-Oriented Life appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

What kind of impact do you have on the environment? According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a typical passenger vehicle emits 4.6 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. One ton is equivalent to a balloon that’s about 30 feet in diameter, so if you were to visualize the metric tons emitted per person per year, picture a balloon 138 feet in diameter. We created a car emissions calculator to help you understand how you’re directly impacting the […]

The post Reduce Your Impact With Our Car Emissions Guide and Calculator appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

Its the perfect antidote to quarantine boredom. READ MORE...

It was inspired by her current habit of wearing old sweatshirts and sweatpants left behind by childhood friends. READ MORE...

In a preprint Modular Classes of Q-Manifolds, Part II: Riemannian Structures & Odd Killing Vectors Fields, I examine the notion of a supermanifold equipped with an even Riemannian metric and an odd Killing vector field that is also homological. Background In a previous post, I briefly disscussed the notion of a Q-manifold and their modular...

Like in Newtonian kinematics, the relativistic change of reference frame must be a vector system of transformation laws for position, velocity and acceleration. In special relativity, when changing the reference frame the coordinates of a moving point is transformed using Lorentz transformation. But the velocity-addition formula that transforms velocity is in a too different mathematical...

Sarah Mitchell Programme Director for the Active and Independent Living Improvement Programme and Susan Kelso AHP Lead for Early Intervention (Scottish Government) spoke to Iriss.fm about the programme and the LifeCurve Survey.

The Active and Independent Living Improvement Programme (AILIP) was officially launched on April 26th by Shona Robison MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport. The vision for Scotland as outlined in the Health and Social care Delivery Plan is to have a Scotland with high quality services that have a focus on prevention, early intervention and supported self management.

The AILIP will be a key contributor to delivering that vision.

Transcript of episode

Music Credit: Something Elated by Broke For Free

Michael McEwan speaks to Ryan Fleming about growing up with a 'hidden disability'.

Ryan is on the autistic spectrum and tells us about the challenging, as well as positive experiences he has faced from childhood right through to adulthood.

He talks about how he sees the world, how he interacts in social situations, his support network and his hopes for the future.

Transcript of episode

Music Credit: Something Elated by Broke For Free

Michelle Drumm speaks to Emma Scott, who was the winner of the Bright Spark Award at the Scottish Social Services Awards in 2018. This award aims to recognise a young person who is excelling in the work they do in the sector.

Since leaving high school in 2014, Emma began an apprenticeship at Peartree Nursery in East Lothian. She has gained an SVQ Level 3 and has lots of hands-on experience with children of different ages and situations.

Freshly Squeezed aims to 'squeeze' information and inspiration from key influencers in social services in Scotland.

Transcript of episode

Music Credit: Make your dream a reality by Scott Holmes

Ensemble is a Loretto Care project that supports young people out of homelessness through song writing and music.

On 19 September, Michelle from Iriss travelled to Stirling to speak with Michael Timmons, Community Engagement Lead for the project, and Andrew Sinclair a participant and volunteer. Ensemble received ‘A 'different approach’ award at the Scottish Social Services Awards 2019.

Transcript of episode

Music Credit: Make your dream a reality by Scott Holmes.

On 27 March 2020 Iriss spoke to Eona Craig, Chief Executive of Articulate Cultural Trust about its work to support care experienced young people, and how the organisation has managed to continue to deliver services in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic.

Articulate works with often socially isolated care experienced young people in Scotland, challenging loneliness, supporting connectivity and promoting physical and mental well-being.

Transcript of episode

Music Credit: Make your dream a reality by Scott Holmes.

Creative Commons has joined forces with other legal experts and leading scientists to offer a simple way for universities, companies, and other holders of intellectual property rights to support the development of medicines, test kits, vaccines, and other scientific discoveries related to COVID-19 for the duration of the pandemic. The Open COVID Pledge grants the … Read More "Open COVID Pledge: Removing Obstacles to Sharing IP in the Fight Against COVID-19"

The post Open COVID Pledge: Removing Obstacles to Sharing IP in the Fight Against COVID-19 appeared first on Creative Commons.

The benefits of open access (OA) are undeniable and increasingly evident across all academic disciplines and scientific research: making academic publications1 freely and openly accessible and reusable provides broad visibility for authors, a better return on investment for funders, and greater access to knowledge for other researchers and the general public. And yet, despite OA’s obvious … Read More "Why Sharing Academic Publications Under “No Derivatives” Licenses is Misguided"

The post Why Sharing Academic Publications Under “No Derivatives” Licenses is Misguided appeared first on Creative Commons.

As most of us know, states across the U.S. can no longer rely on a defined fire season. This sobering truth is especially evident in California where the fire season is 70 days longer than it was 40 years ago, and fire ignitions in the state have greatly

Andrew Klein, Principle with AS Klein Engineering, and Lynne Kilpatrick, Fire Marshal in Sunnyvale, CA led an education session on ‘On-Demand Mobile Fueling; Enforcing Existing Regulations and Evaluating Future Needs” at NFPA Conference &

Home supervision requirements are a type of legal supervision order at home which is unique to the Scottish system of child legislation. Despite being the most common type of disposal used by the Children’s Hearing little is known about how HSRs work in practice or about its impact on young people and families. Using a multi-method approach that included secondary analysis of the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA) dataset; documentary analysis of social work case files; and in-depth interviews; this research seeks to find out more about the nature, scope and outcomes of HSRs from the perspective of those who are affected the most by this type of compulsory intervention – young people, their parents and social workers.

This evaluation report is based on feedback from people living with dementia and carers who received an Individual Award from the Life Changes Trust. The Individual Awards Pilot Scheme was run in Argyll & Bute and Edinburgh in 2014-15 and aimed to provide a small amount of additional financial empowerment to a number of individuals whose lives have been affected by dementia, to help improve their well-being and quality of life. A secondary aim of the pilot scheme was to find out what people would spend the Award on when given relatively broad choice, and what benefit that might bring in the short and medium terms.

This is a paper produced as part of the PROP2 (Practitioner Research: Outcomes and Partnership) programme, a partnership between the Centre for Research on Families and Relationships (CRFR) at the University of Edinburgh and IRISS that was about health and social care in Scotland. This paper was written by iain Houston from Alzeimer Scotland who participated in the PROP2 programme. What this research paper explores: An explorative case study investigating how completing a life story project affected a person with dementia.

Systematic review produced by the EPPI-Centre in 2015.This systematic review aimed to evaluate the effect of HAART and ARV monotherapy on liver disease progression and liver-related mortality in individuals co-infected with HIV and hepatitis C, including in patients with haemophilia.

This is a paper produced as part of the PROP2 (Practitioner Research: Outcomes and Partnership) programme, a partnership between the Centre for Research on Families and Relationships (CRFR) at the University of Edinburgh and Iriss that was about health and social care in Scotland. This paper was written by Geraldine Ditta from Alzheimer Scotland who participated in the PROP2 programme. People living with dementia are at risk of becoming socially isolated and disconnected from their local communities. Reactions from others on being told someone has dementia can have a significant impact on the person with dementia’s sense of self. This study sought to explore the perceptions of people with dementia in relation to attitudes within their communities and how they subsequently respond. Semi-structured interviews were carried out to examine how they feel about their lives with dementia.

This is a paper produced as part of the PROP2 (Practitioner Research: Outcomes and Partnership) programme, a partnership between the Centre for Research on Families and Relationships (CRFR) at the University of Edinburgh and Iriss that was about health and social care in Scotland. This paper was written by Sarah Duff from Alzheimer Scotland who participated in the PROP2 programme and is a research study exploring the experience of group yoga classes and music with those affected by dementia

The Dementia Services Development Centre (DSDC) draws on research and practice, from across the world, to provide a comprehensive, up-to-date resource on all aspects of dementia.

The Short Breaks Fund helping to make breaks better and brighter for unpaid carers and cared-for people in Scotland. Launched in 2010 for one year, the fund has now been running for five years and has proved to be a lifeline for many carers. During the past five years the Scottish Government, through Shared Cared Scotland has distributed 12,547,409 to 697 projects to deliver innovative, tailor made breaks to groups and individuals.

The ‘Dementia: More Than Just Memory Loss’ report, was published in 2016, and set out some of the key issues affecting people with dementia in Wales, in particular: • A widespread lack of knowledge and understanding of dementia amongst professionals and the wider public. • A lack of flexibility to effectively meet the needs of people living with dementia and their carers. • A lack of co-operation between services creates unnecessary difficulties and barriers for people living with dementia and their carers. The authors of the report called for a range of actions to address this, and there has been some progress, however, despite a range of changes across society at a policy, practice and community level, there is still a long way to go to transform services and drive the cultural change needed to effectively meet the needs of people affected by dementia.  The author of this report has consistently focused on the importance of meaningful outcomes for people with dementia and their carers, to ensure that their lives have value, meaning and purpose. This is fundamental to ‘Rethinking Respite’ and to delivering the Welsh Government’s vision of ‘a dementia friendly nation that recognises the rights of people with dementia to feel valued and to live as independently as possible in their communities as outlined in the new Dementia Action Plan for Wales. 

This research compares the different approaches to supporting carers of people with dementia across the UK, US and beyond.  Carried out by the University of Birmingham, this work explores the role and experience of carers in different national contexts, highlighting good practice examples and making policy and practice recommendations.  Unsurprisingly perhaps, the report highlights just how much we have in common with other countries in trying to make available effective, personalised supports against a backdrop of increased demand and diminishing resource.  Interestingly, the report explores the language of ‘respite’ which it suggests has ‘negative overtones’ and proposes a more creative approache to service provision is needed.

President Trump, pull it together, man. At the very least let's work to keep the condolences about the horrific, painful moments in history that are shootings, ACCURATE. Everything about this is a stomach-turning, comically absurd kind of FAIL. Yes, the President of the United States seemingly tweeted out his condolences about the Texas mass shooting, BUT forgot to change the name of the city to Corning, California where a mass shooting occurred at Rancho Tehama Elementary School. 

This is so much to process. If you need a break, these Trump memes are what you will most likely want for said break.

Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his cell on Saturday morning, allegedly by suicide. While the media announced that the sex offender and financier had hung himself, the internet is not as convinced. Most people share the sentiment that he was in fact killed by someone with a whole lot of power. Here are the best conspiracy theory memes that play largely on Epstein's connections with the Clinton and Trump administration, the Clinton body count, and the accusations that many more people were involved in the wealthy man's sex trafficking operation. You don't need to drink the conspiracy theory Kool-Aid to find these funny memes entertaining, so make up your minds for yourselves.

Yesterday Trump tweeted a photo of himself hard at work on his inauguration speech and the internet has been having a field day with it. 

It started on twitter with people guessing at what The Donald might be drawing. Shortly thereafter it got a small photoshop battle. 

'What's Donald Drawing' definitely has the potential to catch on.

Get More Trump Memes that are simply tremendous, people tell me how amazing these memes are all the time.

These memes will make you us want to quit Stalin and overthrow capitalism right Mao.

North Korea released a smiling picture of Kim Jong-Un and were VERY specific about pointing out the fact that the image was untouched. Obviously the first thing the internet did when they got a hold of the image was to touch it up a bit. The results were glorious.

During a meeting to discuss Syria, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was photographed assertively pointing a finger at Donald Trump. Trump later tweeted the photo with the caption, "Nervous Nancy's unhinged meltdown!" the photo has inspired a whole host of memes from every political angle. 

Whether you're a Trump supporter or a Pelosi fan, we think you'll find these trending memes amusing. Or maybe you hate both of them equally! That's certainly an option too!

If the name of the country and the government that runs it has the words "peoples" "republic" or "democratic" then that is a communism

Why do politics always make for the best meme material? We'll just let the politicians speak for themselves. 

In case you missed last night's democratic presidential debate, then we'll give you a little run down: Cory Booker accused Joe Biden of being high, Amy Klobuchar claimed she raised a crap-load of money from her ex-boyfriends, and Biden made an, uh, brain-dead comment about domestic violence. 

Scroll down to watch some of the highlights and view some of the internet's reactions!

Look, we definitely don't want to hate on any particular candidate or take sides in this presidential election cycle, but Joe Biden has just been so meme-able this election season that we really had to take advantage of the material handed to us. We think that Biden supporters and haters alike will be able to laugh at these.

We've been seeing these Bernie Sanders memes practically everywhere on the internet lately, and they don't appear to be stopping any time soon! Here's our last gallery in case you missed 'em. 

We sincerely hope you're not sick of political memes yet, because we've still got far to go before the 2020 presidential elections, so buckle up!

Last night the 2020 Iowa Democratic Caucus stirred up quite the controversy when it was announced that the results would be delayed due to "inconsistencies" in a new app meant to speed up the reporting results of the caucus. Ironic, to say the least. 

But hang tight, because they're set to be released at 5 pm Eastern Time.

Ahead of the results being released, Pete Buttigieg gave what appeared to be a victory speech last night to the confusion of many. The bizarre move has lead many to believe that the system may have been rigged in Mayor Pete's favor.

As always, we have to give the disclaimer that we're not picking sides; we're merely reporting on what the internet has been saying, so scroll down to see some of our favorite reaction memes and tweets while we all wait impatiently for the results.

What started as Bernie Sanders writing an innocent thank you note to his field staff on a white board turned into memers filling it in with hotter takes and less savory messages. Seriously, people should know better at this point than to post images on the internet of people with white boards. It's just asking for bad news.

President Donald Trump was photographed on Friday returning to the White House from a trip to North Carolina and let's just say...he's looking a bit like a mandarin orange. People have been meme-ing and roasting the photo, which shows a very defined tan line of the orange variety on his face. Trump of course called the photo "fake news," and while we have to partially agree that the original was likely altered a bit, it's still amusing to see the reactions nonetheless!

While we would love for election season to be over right about now, we've gotta admit that the resulting political memes have been top-notch. The internet has been loving this particular dank meme, which shows Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi ripping up Donald Trump's State of the Union speech.

You're probably already aware that Michael Bloomberg, cringey billionaire extraordinaire and 2020 presidential candidate, has been reaching out to various big-name meme accounts on Instagram asking them to post content that makes him look a little more...hip to the kids, shall we say? 

But apparently he's doing something right with his presidential campaign, as he's been soaring in the polls and we're seeing ads for him practically everywhere.

Normally we don't like to get too political, but it's clear that Bloomberg was not hugged enough as a child.

Last night's democratic debate in Nevada got pretty damn spicy to say the least. So much so that many are calling it the most entertaining debate of the election cycle so far. Pete spoke Spanish, Warren (and every other candidate, for that matter) came out swinging against Bloomberg, and many, many other things that warranted a monumental cringe fest. 

So please enjoy the following roast-y memes from the night and you can watch a more in-depth recap of it here!

Last night Americans tuned in to watch the audience-free live democratic debate between remaining candidates Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. Topics of discussion included the Green New Deal, Donald Trump, and of course, the COVID-19 pandemic. You can watch the debate here to decide for yourself who won, and click here for more political memes!

In these trying and crazy times, Kentuckians are looking to Governor Andy Beshear for answers. His daily 5pm livestream updates have become popular for their wholesome messages and his amusing call-outs to stubborn bingo halls that just won't close for coronavirus quarantining. He's even earned himself a Facebook meme page, entitled "Andy Beshear Memes for Social Distancing Teens." 

Check some of them out below!  

PotterCast is back with a smattering of Canon Conclumdrums and more with guest host, Andrew Slack of the Harry Potter Alliance, and performances from The Remus Lupins and The Whomping Willows!

Episode 233 — What's the deal with Remus?

Find the latest episode and explore PotterCast interviews, discussions and more at PotterCast.com

Visit the-leaky-cauldron.org for the latest and greatest from Harry Potter's Wizard World.