Kinder Resolutions for 2016

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A new year starts and with it come all the promises that we make to ourselves, the evaluation, the pats on the back, and for some of us perhaps, a few regrets. I guess it is a little inevitable to go through that yearly ritual in January and chances are you have been thinking about your goals for 2016, what you’d like to accomplish and change in your life over the next twelve months. Your new year clock might be set to a slightly different time (mine is!), maybe it’s your birthday for instance, or September and its whole back-to-school nostalgia.

Either way, I believe one thing: we’re all a little too good at coming up with higher and higher expectations for ourselves and that’s why I wanted to write and share this blog post with you today.
On the one hand, planning for some changes and focusing on exciting things ahead is great, it provides some much-needed escapism and if you have the drive and gusto to go after what you want that’s fantastic. On the other hand, it can mean we always ride ourselves pretty hard, and can be unrealistic about what we can accomplish in just one year. Personally, I live with an endless to-do list at the back of my head. If that’s your case too, we both know that sometimes mean beating ourselves up about not getting everything done as fast and as smoothly as we’d like.

This is why this year, I would love to encourage you to make some kinder resolutions for yourself if you can. At the end of the day, our inner ambition, creativity and drive will take care of the planning and the list-making regardless. What won’t take care of itself, or feature prominently on that to-do list, is the sort of goal-setting that would make a huge difference to our happiness day-to-day, keep us a little more sane and at peace with ourselves.

I know it sounds a little like hippy mumbo-jumbo but since I’ve reached the age of reason (26 in case you’re wondering), I’ve turned a page and learned how important it is to take care of yourself better, to think about your wellbeing, your body and your head, just as much as you already do when it comes to your career, projects, loved ones, and everything else that you put first. Of course I am not an expert in leading a fulfilled life, but the tips below have definitely made my life easier these last few years, so I hope they will bring you a little more happiness too. Sounds good? Here we go.

Less Dieting, more Lifestyle Choices

I see a lot of friends talking about diets every January and there is no shame in that, but I think it’s always good to remember that successfully shedding some weight – for good – comes with a change in lifestyle rather than just a loss goal. Otherwise, a diet is only ever just a short phase in which you deprive yourself for a while and then the minute you get your foot off the brake you go a little mental.
In France we always say that there are no secrets when it comes to being fit and healthy, it’s about the same old simple rules you’ve always heard: eating more wholesome foods, well-produced and local if possible, having a bigger portion of vegetables than protein or starch on your plate, limiting your consumption of processed sugar, drinks and snacks, walking more, taking the stairs more, and when you feel ready, doing a couple of sports classes regularly.
While we’re there, I would say don’t pick a class because it will burn the most calories or have the biggest impact on your body. Pick something you will actually be excited to go to, will get you out of the house and provide those endorphins in an enjoyable way. All those intense fitness classes, bootcamps and expensive online programs? Believe me you will quickly find excuses not to follow through with them after a couple of excruciating times.

Ruthlessly Schedule Time-outs

It’s a big one, and you know this already: you will be happier and more rested if you force yourself to step away from the screens a little more everyday. We’re always on our phones, laptops, ipads and let’s be honest, there comes a time when we’re just browsing and not doing anything particular online – yes? This is not giving us any rest, making us smarter, entertained or relaxed so even though it’s a bit of a pain at first, make sure you change your habits and have some off-screen time in the morning, at lunch and in the evening.
When you do this you’ll realise how much time you actually did spend in front of a screen and it’s a little scary. What to do instead? Things with your hands like doodling, cooking or DIYing, reading, listening to a podcast, or going for a wander with no other agenda than being alone with your thoughts. Bonus points if you talk to another human.

Practice Mindfulness

A couple years ago, I got those pretty bad headaches, they would come and go in waves and no pills seemed to be able to wrestle them into oblivion. I went to see the GP after an excruciating three-days stretch and I’ll be honest with you, I had fears of something neurological or optical. He practically laughed in my face. “What you have are tension headaches,” he scolded me, and I was floored. I didn’t feel stressed or anything, I wondered, or did I? Sure there were always a hundred thoughts swirling at the back of my head; yes okay, I would walk or talk with my arms crossed over my body, as if to protect myself from some big menace; and well of course I had a little trouble going to sleep in the evening, what with the frenzied cataloguing of my current list of worries. You guessed it, I was pretty stressed after all, and not very well versed in listening to myself.
The bad news? Challenges and worries are probably not ever going to go away. The good news: how “away” you stand “from” them is something you can absolutely influence and that’s what’s going to make your life about 200% easier. It’s called mindfulness and the sooner you get started on it through meditation and yoga, the sooner you can keep your stress at arms’ length and refuse to let it pollute your daily thoughts because let’s face it, it’s pretty very rare that agonising over something has solved anything at all. No, it’s the opposite way around: the better you get at taking a step back and decluttering your arsenal of logic and creativity from the dread and chaos it’s currently entangled with in your head and heart, the sooner your problems will actually get solved.
If I can do it, you can do it too – it just takes practice. In a nutshell, mindfulness is the killer combo of taking time to be with yourself, coming back to your body, quieting your thoughts, learning to breathe better, stretching your head, shoulders, and back more regularly, and little by little I promise you will see a tremendous impact on your wellbeing, how you sleep at night and how you come to deal with every hurdle that comes your way. You can use the Headspace app, and follow some gentle yoga routines

on YouTube thanks to Adrienne.

Choose Kindness

This one sounds easy but it really isn’t as you need to learn to be more vocal about positive things: love that dress that someone is wearing at the party, the office, or on the street? Tell them. Tell them even, or especially, if they’re a stranger – it will make both of your days better. See someone looking at their phone with a puzzled brow? Offer directions before they need to ask. See someone carrying a heavy bag in your neighbourhood or near your office? Offer to carry it for them even if it makes you do a ten minute detour, it’s such a nice thing to do.
The catch here of course, and it’s a big one, is that kindness without an agenda comes with being a lot more attentive to the world around us and here again, you’ll probably need to unlearn some unconscious behaviours. I for one was always braving the outside world with my headphones on whereas I was walking, taking the bus, doing groceries. And to practice kindness, you have to spot opportunities to do something for someone, you have to be more present.
Being more kind also starts at home, with family and friends and what I mean here is: you don’t really need to have the last word, you don’t really need to be inflexible about every little thing someone says or does that you dislike or is against what you wanted, and you most certainly should not reach out to others only when you need something or want to talk about your problems. These are little things we don’t like to admit but that we probably take liberty with.

Just Walk Away

Maybe this is a slightly controversial one but I’ll still say it. That show, website, film, book, or even friend that you engage with and then almost immediately feel stressed, uncomfortable, or unhappy about? You need to walk away from it, to drop it, to stop engaging with it. Life is way too short to spend heaps of time recovering from interactions that make us unnecessarily happy and I’m saying this because I’ve had my share of toxic things and people in the past and it never gets easier with them.
People who make it all about themselves, are overtly sensitive, moody or negative, whose lives seem to be an endless succession of one drama situation after another are just draining energy from you and you know exactly who they are. It’s better to let them go and you shouldn’t feel bad about it, you don’t owe anything to anyone. People have as much power over you as you let them, so just don’t let them. You can’t fix them and it’s pointless and self-righteous to try.

Trust Yourself More

Here is an easier one: if you’ve been thinking about this last year and weighting everything up at lengths then it’s likely you have thought about how you would have done some things differently, am I right? It’s so easy to know what you should have said, chosen or done in hindsight. So why not take the reflection a step further and put pen to paper to write a letter of advice to yourself – a year ago?
Because chances are, most of that advice is still very much valid for the year ahead and if you trust the wisdom that comes from the experiences you’ve had those last 12 months by trying to extract what you’ve learned about yourself from each challenge and each success, I bet it will help you navigate this year with more trust and confidence.

Phew! That was a long one, wasn’t it?

Seriously though, I hope you’ve found some food for thought in this post, these are some hard-earned lessons I’ve made and although it’s definitely a work in progress, being kinder to myself has had a real impact on my life day to day. Plus, once you start, it’s a virtuous circle. I’m sincerely wishing you all the best for 2016 and if you’re happy to share, I’d love to know the little (or the big) things that you do to be happier? It’s always helpful to compare notes.

Injecting bacteria helps fight stress, says study

Injections of the bacterium Mycobacterium vaccae, which lives naturally in soil, help to recover from stress and improve behavior in mice, according to a new study published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Researchers, University of Colorado (USA), found that M.vaccae also prevented the development of colitis by stress, a typical symptom of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) induced, suggesting that immunization with bacteria they can have a wide range of health benefits.

"The immunized mice responded with a pattern of confrontation to more proactive stress, a strategy that has been associated with the resilience of stress in animals and humans," said Christopher Lowry, associate professor in the Department of Integrative Physiology professor the University of Colorado and one of the directors of research.

The team found that mice given a high dose of the bacteria had about half of behaviors of escape and stress against aggression that mice that were not treated, only during the first hour of experiment.

Immunized mice continued to show decreased levels of submissive behavior of one to two weeks after treatment.

The data disclosed on colitis, measured by cellular damage in the colon, also experienced a 50% improvement compared to animals that had not been exposed to the bacteria.

The research highlights the importance of the microbiome of a body to prevent and cope with diseases related to inflammation and psychiatric diseases.

"An injection of M.vaccae is not designed to target a particular antigen in the way you would a vaccine, but in its active place immunoregulatory responses of the individual to protect it from inappropriate inflammation," Lowry said.

The well-known "hygiene hypothesis" holds that health habits, use of antibiotics and changes in diet in the modern era have greatly reduced human exposure to environmental bacteria and other immunoregulatory organisms, thus reducing diversity human microbiome and its ability to deal with certain diseases.

The lack of exposure to these organisms are thought to contribute to the current epidemic of inflammatory diseases in modern urban societies.

"We continue to see how these naturally occurring bacteria can modulate the immune system in ways that might be beneficial" for humans, said Lowry.

What are the most common pains in the country?

Pain has been explored, studied and thought from such different fields as philosophy, psychology and medicine. The constant, in general, is usually the same: no one wants to feel it, and who does he complains.
Part of the concept of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP for short) could be within the philosophical field: "Pain is always subjective," they say, but this does not prevent it can be a measurable and studiable phenomenon science.
In terms of duration, medicine believes that pain can be divided into two distinct categories: acute, which is timely and is usually related to a particular injury, and chronic, that is recurrent and extends over periods of months. Although other sources consider different classifications, IASP stipulates that there must be more than three months to be considered chronic.
With information from 2014 and published last year, the latest research of the Colombian Association for the Study of Pain (ACED, the Colombian chapter of the international group) analyzed the prevalence of this type of pain over the country, its impact on life people and how it is treated.
The study, carried out by Datexco and analyzed by anesthesiologists Marixa Aura Guerrero and Maria Patricia Gomez, gathered information from 1,583 people from 11 cities.
Among the many striking results (see box) are that 46% of people suffer chronic pain said-more than three months' duration-; 41% reported a severe intensity and 39% moderate; and 30% said it had not received any treatment for this.
Where does it hurt people?
The location of chronic pain of respondents (see box) is mostly musculoskeletal (64.5%), which follow him craniofacial (23.3%), abdominal pain (7.8%), chest and thorax (3.3%) and others, with smaller percentages.
"The prevalence of musculoskeletal pain in this age group (over 50% of respondents had more than 46 years of age) in our country is similar to the rest of the world," says Dr. Alejandro Upegui, anesthesiologist and coordinator specialization in anesthesiology at UPB. Add that together with the age the reasons may be associated with a sedentary lifestyle because this type of pain are isolating people progressively "as it hurts no way, as it hurts do not exercise, etc.," he explains .
The main features of chronic pain are that Colombian increases when moving or physical activity (63.7%), which is sharp (52.5%) and it feels like some sort of pressure (50.5%). And while 94.5% of people said that this treatment was based drugs, significant percentages of people claimed resort to home remedies (45.5%) and alternative medicine (29.7%) to relieve their pain.
If we assume that the drugs are effective, why additional treatments?
For Dr. Emilio Esteban González, chief of medical oncology at the Central University Hospital of Asturias, in Spain, although the issue is not a concern because most people resort to drugs, "that 50% look for other alternatives can indicate that they have not been properly diagnosed, or missing information to adequately treat pain. "
Gonzalez, specialized in oncology and is in town for a medical forum on the use of opioids to treat chronic pain, adds that as the cause of pain prevalence is different. "In chronic cancer pain) cancers, tumors, masses), for example, it is very high".
With that in mind, such as physiotherapy treatments should not be seen as an alternative, but a complement to medication.
Upegui adds that "many patients end their visit to the doctor usually pain" when sometimes a specialist may be necessary. "That condition of multiple treatments may be due to mismanagement of medical service," he says.
Another result of the study is striking is the 30% who said it had not received any treatment. To consider, research collected 48% of its data from a low socioeconomic status, 45% of the average and 7% high.
In this regard, Dr. Juan Pablo Vargas, medical director of Mundipharma in Colombia, said that the problem with chronic pain in the country is the difficulty in access to medicines to handle it.
Moreover, Upegui considered that "when difficulties in processes in health care are evaluated there are three elements to define why not proper care is received: ignorance against should be consulted, difficulties in economic conditions or displacement couple attend a consultation and is not given the necessary or appropriate care. A person with less economic possibilities might have difficulties in any of the three."
Other considerations
The pain has an emotional component. The last section of research examined how this pain affected various spheres of life of people. this in him respondents to rate from one to five (: all, five long one) was asked.
The work was the most affected by pain (both acute and chronic), where 34.8% responded that the degree of involvement was between four and five field. Among those who suffer chronically, 32.5% said they had ever been incapacitated by the problem in question, and in that group 72.7% indicated that failure was from 1 to 10 working days.
Other aspects such as emotional or sleeping hours were also affected, where 34.1% and 33.3% (respectively) of people said they had been affected very important or important way.
The least affected in this matter were sex life and self-care.
"Several studies indicate that controlled pain has a negative connotation in the quality of life of a patient, and does not allow it to develop its activities optimally," refers González.
To Upegui, the matter could go further, because talking about sexuality is affected can generate resistance. While "a significant percentage of the population is at an age where these other areas are in decline, we need to look at them in depth."
Why study the pain?
Since 2004 the World Health Organization (WHO) endorsed on 17 October as the World Day against pain, a celebration that seeks to highlight the need to find relief for suffering from diseases like cancer or AIDS.
On that occasion Harald Breivik, President of the European chapter of the IASP, said: "Chronic pain is one of the health problems most underrated in the world today despite having serious consequences on the quality of life of those who suffer because it is a major burden on health systems in the Western world. "
"Most people who suffer pain live in low- and middle-income where every day increases further the tax burden caused by chronic diseases" also he said Catherine Le Gales-Camus, assistant director of the Division of Mental Diseases and Noncommunicable the OMS.
Indeed, figures as of absenteeism by chronic pain not only regarding medical concerns but also those of governments and businesses. Added to this, the importance of self-care in this area (and low involvement by pain) may be relevant for anyone.
Upegui, but questioned whether the research was conducted on collected results of telephone way in a short time and without a history of those called, he said that the volume analyzed allows validation, and analysis of this type has a considerable impact. In his words, it should serve to build guidelines on the management of pain and a significant improvement in the subject, especially when "80% of normal medical consultation is pain."
Vargas stresses the importance of education, training and dissemination in this regard. "For example, common analgesics, which are available in any supermarket shelf, do not serve for proper treatment of chronic pain, people should not take more than five or six days these drugs. And yet, they do. "
Experts stress the importance of issues such as self-care, proper diagnosis and at all costs avoid self-medication.
Specialized in cancer patients where chronic pain is an issue with transverse components that pass through the physical, psychological and chemical, he adds: "With only a change we can substantially improve different aspects of quality of life of patients, helping to new to relate to society and regain their dignity. Pain can have, day by day, an impact on who we are".

IMPROVE YOUR INTELLIGENCE (WITHOUT DRUGS)

Smart people’s brain cells behave like team players,
and taking advantage of exercised routines, they
cooperate to optimise the processes of the brain,
according to scientists, who aim to find the brain’s
”coach” and improve our intelligence.
When Albert Einstein died in
Princeton Hospital in 1955, brain
surgeons quickly, removed the
genius’ brain, hoping that in its spongy
tissue, they would find the secret behind
the Nobel Prize laureate’s fabulous
intelligence. Einstein’s brain was measured,
weighed and cut into 240 pieces, which
were all sealed in paraffin and studied
closely under a microscope. But scientists
found nothing, and although several other
researchers have made their own attempts
since then, they cannot find any key
differences between Einstein’s brain and
those of ordinary people.
INTELLIGENCE IS IN THE GENES
It has always been a mystery to brain
researchers why some people are smarter
than others, but now, they have forgotten
about their microscopes in order to study the
cerebral cortex and spongy tissue using new,
sophisticated methods. And they have
spotted thousands of genes that cooperate
to make intelligent brains excel. By
understanding how the genes work,
scientists hope to be able to improve
everybody’s intelligence in the future. In
recent years, brain researchers have
discovered a long series of genes that help
make the brain smart. Most of them see to
The human brain’s performance
depends on thousands of genes,
which are constantly at work. The
genes come in different variants
that work in slightly different ways.
According to scientists, your IQ
depends on the variants you have of
the many different brain genes.
7,000 – that many genes influence
the performance of your brain.

The 9 Worst Fake News Sites

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A joke without a punchline is just a lie. And there sure are a lot of missing punchlines on the internet these days.

You've probably seen these "fake news" websites floating around on social media recently. You might have even shared a story from one of them yourself! But don't be ashamed. We all make mistakes. And hopefully this little guide will help you keep an eye out for the worst of the fakes.

9) World News Daily Report

Remember that story about loggers accidentally cutting down the world's oldest tree? It went viral in environmentalist circles, but turned out to be a fake put out by the "satire" site World News Daily Report. The weird part is that the real story that it was clearly inspired by is actually better.

With articles like First Rehab Center For People Addicted to Apple Products Inaugurated in New York, the site doesn't always seem intent on deceiving people. But it's still not very good. Not very good at all.

8) Free Wood Post

Stories like North Korea Unable to Access Their AOL Dial-Up pretty much say it all about the Free Wood Post. It's basically The Onion, if The Onion were written by fourth graders digging through USA Today for story ideas.

7) Empire News

Did you see a story making its way through Facebook recently about the accused Boston bomber getting beaten up in prison? It was a fake news item created by Empire News, a painfully unfunny site with other gems like Toddler Hospitalized With 2nd Degree Burns From Radiant Heat Flooring. Hilarious, right?

6) Huzlers

Stories like Huzlers' Subway Discovered To Be Using Cockroaches In Food, FDA to Close U.S. Subway Restaurants might be obviously fake to some people. But there's always someone who thinks it's real. Especially your aunt who already thinks fast food is a government-run conspiracy to keep the population docile. Which it is, by the way. Makes you think.

5) Betoota Advocate

Look, it happens to the best of us. Unfortunately our good friends at Deadspin were recently taken in by a fake story from the Betoota Advocate. The Olympics is not going to have 3-on-3 basketball. But why not? Sillier things have been Olympic sports in the past.

Frankly I'm just waiting for the day when I uncritically re-report some story from a fake news site. It's bound to happen. It's only a matter of time. Let's call it Actually's Law. But yeah, the Betoota Advocate is generally not funny, which is part of the problem.

4) Lightly Braised Turnip

If you read a story last year about an enormous giant squid that washed up on the shores of Southern California, you can thank/blame Lightly Braised Turnip. Admittedly, the name Lightly Braised Turnip is kind of a fun play on the world's most famous (and actually funny) fake news site, The Onion. But far too many of LBT's stories are clearly just meant to deceive people for viral shares.

3) The Borowitz Report

Humor is subjective, so I don't doubt that there are plenty of people who take pleasure from reading The Borowitz Report. And more power to them. But there are way too many stories that are simply too plausible, which often leads them to go viral because there's not a single joke in the story. Day Old Congress Most Hated Ever? Yeah, that's pretty much true. Obama Urged To Apologize For Anti-Fear Remark? Is there anything in that headline that strikes you as implausible or funny?

Perhaps The Borowitz Report is an indictment of modern politics in the most crushing way. Maybe Borowitz is using his platform as a kind of long con that ultimately makes us realize we live in a world that's simply beyond parody. But for the time being, it seems to serve primarily as something to get passed around and mistaken for real news.
Stories like Joni Ernst Says She Used to Wear Bucket On Head For No Apparent Reason honestly give me pause. The post is so incredibly absurd and infantile that I suddenly think I might not be smart enough to understand it. Is The Borowitz Report working on an entirely new level? Is it so bad that it's good? Probably not.

2) National Report

Banking on political outrage is generally a safe business bet. Just look at cable news. So when you see fake stories from The National Report like Planned Parenthood Proposes Mobile Abortion Services, it's pretty clear who the target audience might be.

The question becomes how long the outrage economy might last with Facebook's new automated tags calling out fake news. My guess? We have plenty of good viral fake news years ahead of us.

1) The Daily Currant

Over and over again the website Daily Currant has succeeded at getting its terrible fake stories shared by people ready to believe that Rick Santorum was on Grindr or Sarah Palin had joined Al-Jazeera. The latter was even picked up by the Washington Post.
In fact, a number of respected news outlets have re-reported stories from the Daily Currant. They even caused one of the best New York Times corrections of all time. After a dumb story wherein Kanye West says that he has a better ass than his wife Kim Kardashian, the Times lifted the quotes for their own story about Kardashian's butt.

The correction from the New York Times:

Editors' Note: November 22, 2014
An earlier version of this column was published in error. That version included what purported to be an interview that Kanye West gave to a Chicago radio station in which he compared his own derrière to that of his wife, Kim Kardashian. Mr. West's quotes were taken, without attribution, from the satirical website The Daily Currant. There is no radio station WGYN in Chicago; the interview was fictitious, and should not have been included in the column.

Yep. That was a real thing that happened in America's paper of record. And it's inexcusable coming from news outlets that aren't doing their homework. But somewhat understandable when there's not a single joke in the entire story.
This list doesn't even count the fake news purveyors that only exist on Twitter. Like that terribly unfunny North Korean government account. There are plenty of other fake news sites out there like The Onion that are actually funny. But sadly, people still mistake these for real news outlets. There's even a website called Literally Unbelievable that tracks people who still think The Onion is a real news source.

Are you dying to create your own fake news to see if you can get a hoax to go viral? Try Global Associated News. They let you plug in a name and choose from different locations and professions to auto-generate a hoax story. If you can't beat 'em, may as well join 'em. Right?

10 parental behaviors that hinder the education of children

Most parents attaches great importance to the studies of their children and try to get involved in them. But teachers and psychologists say that not always clear what is their role in school learning and sometimes adopt attitudes that end up harming the education of children.

STUDYING WITH THEM
Being a parent and teacher at the same time creates conflicts and dependence
“They get the first homework and there are mom and dad next door; and duties are the creature, not family; the duty of the family is to ensure that the child has time and space to do their homework and if they are very small, facilitate the organization of time, “explains Maria Jesús Comellas, professor at the UAB at the Faculty of Education Sciences and psychologist specializing in family-school relationships.
Benjamí Montenegro, the Equip PSICOLOGIC the Desenvolupament de l’Individu, says the role of parents is the auditors: “You have to control the work is done, but not enter the content because it is the tasks make them children and so work their autonomy. ” That does not mean that if the child raises doubt not give tracks or tools to solve it. Experts say that making teachers and parents at the same time brings only problems: family daily and dependence creates conflicts, because kids tend to be someone above them to work. And if the child has learning difficulties or need reinforcement, the advice is to seek a tutor.
ALL resolve it
Oversights difficult to solve their maturation
“Children have to learn to organize and solve their problems, at any age, and not to send anyone rushing to buy printer ink late afternoon because the next day is to deliver a job or take to school the book or the sandwich forgotten; if parents solve them all ‘as long as they study’, not mature, do not assume their responsibilities and learn to be autonomous, “agree Comellas and Montenegro.
Focus ALL IN THE STUDIO
Make training the axis of family life damages the relationship
Educators say that a student repeated phrase is “my parents are only interested if I study, the rest do not care about anything.” “When focalizas all studies, when the first thing you ask your son at the school gate is what duties you have or what note you have rather than how was your day, or with whom you have related, sends the message that you are interested in learning, not the person, “says Comellas. He adds that the same applies when the university son frees you from housework because “their work is to study”. “That person has to live, must know how to organize, have domestic skills and ability to relate, and that sometimes we neglect or we care about your emotional and relational life,” emphasizes the psychologist.
QUERER GENIOS
Overstimulate often causes the opposite effect
Teachers explain that a very common practice in families is to overstimulate children. “Everyone wants a genius child and fill them cradle of gadgets, abuse educational games, are struggling because learn many things and the sooner the better, and that overstimulation not only influences faster cognitive evolution, but often has effects counterproductive as attention problems or lack of concentration, “says Joan Domènech, school teacher Fructuós Gelabert Barcelona.
That impatience about learning causes, according to psychologists, parents despair before the first difficulties in studies or living as a failure the first bad results, regardless of education is a long-term process and that what children need to learn is patience and encouragement. “Parents should not consider the poor results as a failure because it reduces the self-esteem of children and incapacitates more and more to each other,” they warn.
NOTES REWARD
The material incentive distorted and can increase frustration
Notes nor have to reward or punish; They have to praise and applaud, or analyze if needed more time to study, according to experts. “The best incentive is to discover new things and develop your interests, if necessary stimulus material, is that something does not work,” said Domenech.
Montenegro warns that the awards can cause a double frustration, because often offered by unrealistic notes and if the kid does not succeed despite the promised reward his sense of failure and their discomfort is twofold: in addition to not reach their school goal, it is left without a gift.
Disguising VAGANCIA
Find disorders behind the failures delayed maturity
Another recurring behavior they observe teachers is the tendency of parents to seek neurological disorders behind school failures of their children. “There are many children who are unable to make an effort to do homework or study because they are vague, and that’s immaturity, not a mental disorder, and sometimes try to disguise that vagrancy as intolerance to frustration or stress intolerance, when what have is lack of autonomy, “says Montenegro. Comellas stresses that this attitude has to do with the hiperprotectora attitude of many parents seeking disorder label to the underperformance of their children “because at the time masquerading something like disorder is desculpabiliza everyone”.
EXERCISE OF DETECTIVES
The absolute control of their tasks arouses mistrust
There are parents who track homework, jobs, testing date, or comments of their children in class through the school agenda, the web center, social networks or implying in his inquiries to the parents of other children in the class , with whom they are in constant contact by WhatsApp. “Such behavior causes a gap of distrust and solves nothing,” says Montenegro. Instead of exercising this absolute control advisable to perform a distant accompaniment, review with the boy’s agenda but leaving that task to be autonomous to perform them. And for parents who choose to ask the lesson to see if the child has prepared a review, experts recommend to put three or four questions in writing, because usually no oral exams and useless to the child the lesson is known talking if then it expressed poorly written or commits many misspellings.
USE THE STUDY AS TOLL
Homework just understood as a punishment
“Punished to do homework” or “until you finish reading no no drawings” are phrases used by some parents to encourage their children to do homework. But experts say the study time should always be a time of peace and quiet, not scolding. The aim, they say, should be to help children discover the pleasure of reading or learning, and this is not achieved if homework as a punishment or as a necessary step to enjoy pleasurable activities like going toll arise with friends, watch TV or play with the console.
And as they grow, they have to understand the relationship between effort, dedication and results, “and assume that if they have to study more because they have had bad grades is an investment, not a punishment,” says Comellas.
DESIGNED IN CHILDREN
Expectations are not always suited to the capabilities
Psychologists believe that in many families outweigh expectations of parents on children’s education preferences or capabilities of these, and many kids are oriented to study what they want or like their parents. “In this country we confuse intelligence with title, we continue discrediting vocational training and do not value creativity as a means to live,” muses Comelles.
NOT BOUND BY THE SCHOOL ONLINE
The model parent does not guarantee success today
Many parents think that the model and educational methods that served them serve their children, but the school has changed a lot and the kids too. “What you liked school, what you learned and how you learned then not have to be a successful model for your children,” says Domenech. And therefore considers a mistake that parents try to teach children to read or to calculate on your own or put them building activities at home, without considering that perhaps are interfering in the rhythm or the pedagogical method followed by the school. “One has to consider which school to take your child, make sure sharing the same ideas, and then accompany the child in learning but with respect to the process that are still in school, and do not give the child different messages,” muses . Educators are especially critical with parents who constantly show their disagreement with teachers in the presence of children, because they take advantage of that situation to handle some and others.

Thor Ragnarok adds Jurassic Park star in mystery role

It’s always nice when actors self-confirm theirselves for movies, and ever the gentleman, the universally loved Sam Neill (star of Jurassic Park, Event Horizon, Possession and numerous others) has done exactly that by announcing that he will be showing up in Thor: Ragnarok.
Having just worked with director Taika Waititi on charming indie drama Hunt For The Wilderpeople, his inclusion makes sense – plus it has the added bonus of marking a big-screen reunion of sorts with Jurassic Park co-star Jeff Goldblum, which is also a great thing, naturally. The revelation was revealed in an interview with Shortlist, in which he said:
“I’m not really allowed to say this and I can’t tell you what it is… I did a couple of days on Thor just before I came over here. If I say anything else, Marvel’s secret agents — and they are lethal — will come and get me and probably my children, as well.”

Sam Neill wil make a cameo in Thor: Ragnarok.

Okay, so he’s been pretty vague as regards who he’s actually playing (by ‘vague’ we of course mean “hasn’t said a word”), and it will probably be a very small role (he later said he’d only been on set for 4-5 days), but it’s still cool to have someone of his calibre there. We’re rooting for this to be a better movie than Thor: The Dark World, and hopefully this will be the case now.
Neill joins existing cast members Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Cate Blanchett, Tessa Thompson, Jeff Goldblum, Karl Urban, Jaimie Alexander and more, with Waititi working from a script penned by Craig Kyle, Christopher Yost, Stephany Folsom and Eric Pearson.
Thor: Ragnarok will be released in cinemas on 3 November 2017

Logan Updates: The Cryptic Poster; Professor X’s Temperament And Over The Hill Wolverine

 


third installment of the Wolverine movies will be out in no time. Things are beginning to unfold on the much-anticipated Logan.
Not long ago, rumors were rife that Hugh Jackman will call it a day on the Wolverine character. That news in itself was a bombshell to the Marvel fans who are in no mood to let go of the Australian actor. After a while, his presence in the upcoming Logan was enough to renew the hopes of the Marvel fanatics.

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Logan is shaping up by the day and the official poster is out following the release date. To make matters escalate, more details on the temperament of good old professor and Wolverine are public now. Slash Film weighs in the expectations from Logan on the basis of director’s verdict. James Mangold has some interesting things to say about his movie, of course.
The initial poster hinted enough about the aging Wolverine and James testifies the fact. The poster did not reveal much except the wrinkles and old scars. Furthermore, James says that his movie is set in the future even. The second poster of the child holding Wolverine’s hand changes everything.
Under the circumstances, it is essential to understand that Logan will portray the downfall of Wolverine. His abilities are diminishing and his alcohol abuse is certainly not helping. On the other hand, Professor X is not at the best of his abilities, too. He is more unstable than he ever was and that is not a welcoming sign.
With Mister Sinister at the helm of the adversaries, atrocious experiments are at its zenith. He is conducting a furtive experiment called Transigen and the poster kid is likely the end product. The kid is presumably under the custody of Wolverine and things are not looking good for either of them.

Logan is seemingly the movie where Hugh Jackman will sign off from the franchise. In the light of above assumption, the movie has better reasons to turn out well.

Doctor Strange is mind-bending

From Marvel Studios comes Doctor Strange, the story of world-famous neurosurgeon Dr. Stephen Strange whose life changes forever after a horrific car accident robs him of the use of his hands. When traditional medicine fails him, he is forced to look for healing, and hope, in an unlikely place—a mysterious enclave known as Kamar-Taj. He quickly learns that this is not just a center for healing but also the front line of a battle against unseen dark forces bent on destroying our reality. Before long Strange—armed with newly acquired magical powers—is forced to choose whether to return to his life of fortune and status or leave it all behind to defend the world as the most powerful sorcerer in existence.
Doctor Strange stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rachel McAdams, Benedict Wong, Michael Stuhlbarg, Benjamin Bratt and Scott Adkins, with Mads Mikkelsen and Tilda Swinton. Scott Derrickson is directing with Kevin Feige producing. Louis D’Esposito, Stephen Broussard, Victoria Alonso, Charles Newirth and Stan Lee serve as executive producers. Jon Spaihts and Scott Derrickson & C. Robert Cargill wrote the screenplay. Join Strange on his dangerous, mystifying and totally mind-bending journey when Marvel Studios’ Doctor Strange opens in US theatres on November 4, 2016.

Pacific Rim 2: Cast Update, Release Date And Trailer

Pacific Rim 2, the sequel to Guillermo del Toro’s kaiju vs jaeger monster smash, is picking up steam, and there have been a string of casting announcements over the last couple of weeks for Steven S DeKnight’s directorial debut. Let’s take a look at who’s been cast so far….

John Boyega was the first actor to jump on board, and he’s pretty much the only actor who we have a character description for. We know that The Force Awakens and Attack The Block star will play the son of Idris Elba’s Stacker Pentecost, and we’re assuming that he’s the film’s lead. That seems like a safe assumption, right?

Yesterday it was announced that Adria Arjona had been cast (via Deadline). You probably know Arjona from her role as Taylor Kitsch’s frustrated girlfriend Emily in the second season of True Detective, but she’s got some exciting projects on the way. She’s starring in The Belko Experiment, the horror written by James Gunn and directed by Greg Mclean, Melissa McCarthy comedy Life Of The Party, and she’s playing Dorothy Gale in Emerald City, the upcoming reimaging of The Wizard Of Oz.

Jing Tian joined the cast last week, and details about her role are non-existent. Like Arjona, she’s got a whole raft of exciting projects on the way, and two of them seem to involve giant fantastical creatures. There’s Yang Zhimou’s The Great Wall (the Chinese fantasy epic starring Matt Damon, Andy Lau and Willem Dafoe in a battle for humanity’s survival), and there’s Kong: Skull Island. So, lots of Legendary Pictures films for this actress. You might also recognise her from Police Story 2013 (starring Jackie Chan) and Special ID (starring Donnie Yen).

Then there’s Levi Meaden, another recent addition, and one who actually comes with a few character details. He’s playing “Ilya, an irreverent and offbeat cadet.” Yep, that’s as detailed as it gets, really. Meaden is currently starring on Syfy show Aftermath with Anne Heche and James Tupper, and he’s also put in guest appearances on shows like The Killing, The 100, Olympus and SciFiNow favourite iZombie.

Newcomer Cailee Spaeny was reported by Variety as playing the film’s female lead, but that’s where the details end. We quote “Character details are unknown on who Spaeny would be playing.” Spaeny is an up-and-coming Australian actor and singer, whose IMDB page is fairly sparse at this point.

A more recognisable name is Scott Eastwood, who was the first name to jump on board after Boyega. Eastwood’s an incredibly busy actor, having appeared in Suicide Squad, Snowden, Walk Of Fame and Mercury Plains this year, and he’s got Fast 8, Ben Affleck’s Live By Night and Wayne Kramer’s Ecstasia on the way. He joined the cast at the end of June (via Deadline). The site says it’s a “key role” but details? Nope. Not a one.

But what about the original film’s cast? Guillermo del Toro promised that some of the actors would be returning, but there’s been no one confirmed yet. Charlie Hunnam has come out and said that he won’t be back, but what about Rinko Kikuchi’s Mako Mori? Or Charlie Day’s Newton Geiszler? Clifton Collins Jr’s Tendo Choi? Don’t tell us that Ron Perlman’s Hannibal Chau won’t be back. Don’t you dare.
Pacific Rim 2 will be released in cinemas on 23 February 2018

The Monster trailer The Strangers director is back with creepy horror

We've been keeping an eye on The Monster, the latest film from The Strangers writer-director Bryan Bertino and starring the most excellent Zoe Kazan (Ruby Sparks, What If), and there's finally a trailer for chiller (which used to be called There Are Monsters).
The cast also includes Ella Ballentine (The Captive), genre veteran Aaron Douglas (Battlestar Galactica, Hemlock Grove) and Bertino's Strangers star Scott Speedman.
This looks like it could be a nicely tense horror; we're definitely fans of the fact that the trailer doesn't give very much away, and we're intrigued by the hot pink text (maybe that's just us?). Kazan's presence is also very interesting, as she's not worked in horror before.
"Acclaimed horror filmmaker Bryan Bertino (The Strangers) directs this suspenseful and scary new film, in which a divorced mother (Zoe Kazan) and her headstrong daughter must make an emergency late night road trip to see the girl’s father. As they drive through deserted country roads on a stormy night, they suddenly have a startling collision that leaves them shaken but not seriously hurt. Their car, however, is dead, and as they try in vain to get help, they come to realise they are not alone on these desolate backroads—a terrifying evil is lurking in the surrounding woods, intent on never letting them leave…
A chilling and tension-filled experience, The Monster pits two ferociously strong women against one of the scariest and most shocking monsters you’ll ever see. It will be a battle no one will forget."
The Monster is released in the US on 11 November

Blade Runner 2 finally has an official title

In what will likely be looked at as the first step in the gradual demystification of the Blade Runner sequel, we finally have an official title for the film you will all be theorising and fretting about in the build-up to it getting released next year: say hello to Blade Runner 2049.
Having put our best detective monocles on, we're going to hazard a guess and presume that this is the year in which it will be taking place. This makes it 30 yeas after the 2019-set original, and judging by the concept art that has been released so far, the future will be just as dark yet neon-hued as it was in the slightly-less-distant future.
In the meantime, we also have a nice behind-the-scenes shot of some of the main figures involved with Blade Runner 2049: director Denis Villeneuve; producer (and director of the original) Ridley Scott; Harrison Ford (returning to play - presumably - Rick Deckard), and new star Ryan Gosling. Although it doesn't tell us much apart from the fact that Ford can rock a yellow t-shirt, it's nice to get a glimpse behind the scenes of what has been up until now one of the more mysterious upcoming releases to date. Hopefully we won't have to wait too long before getting a sneak footage preview, otherwise there'll be tears in the rain. Sorry.
Joining Ford and Gosling on the cast are Robin Wright, Lennie James, Dave Bautista, Jared Leto, Ana de Armas, Sylvia Hoeks, Carla Juri, Mackenzie Davis, Barkhad Abdi, David Dastmalchian and Hiam Abbass. Denis Villeneuve is directing from a script penned by Hampton Fancher and Michael Green, with Ridley Scott producing alongside Broderick Johnson, Andrew A. Kosove, Cynthia Sikes and Bud Yorkin.

Underworld 5 trailer sees the war rage on

Read the synopsis and watch the first trailer for Underworld: Blood Wars below:
The next installment in the blockbuster franchise, UNDERWORLD: BLOOD WARS follows Vampire death dealer, Selene (Kate Beckinsale) as she fends off brutal attacks from both the Lycan clan and the Vampire faction that betrayed her. With her only allies, David (Theo James) and his father Thomas (Charles Dance), she must stop the eternal war between Lycans and Vampires, even if it means she has to make the ultimate sacrifice.

 
Underworld: Blood Wars will be released in cinemas on 3 February 2017

Resident Evil 6 trailer promises explosive endgame

Read the synopsis and watch the trailer for Resident Evil: The Final Chapter below:

Picking up immediately after the events in Resident Evil: Retribution, Alice (Milla Jovovich) is the only survivor of what was meant to be humanity’s final stand against the undead. Now, she must return to where the nightmare began – The Hive in Raccoon City, where the Umbrella Corporation is gathering its forces for a final strike against the only remaining survivors of the apocalypse.
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter will be released in cinemas on 24 February 2017. For all the latest movie news, pick up the new issue of SciFiNow.

Power Rangers posters are ready for action

Read the synopsis for Power Rangers, directed by Dean Israelite and starring Ludi Lin, Naomi Scott, RJ Cyler, Becky G, Dacre Montgomery, Elizabeth Banks, Bryan Cranston and Bill Hader, below:
Saban’s Power Rangers follows five ordinary high school kids who must become something extraordinary when they learn that their small town of Angel Grove – and the world – is on the verge of being obliterated by an alien threat. Chosen by destiny, our heroes quickly discover that they are the only ones who can save the planet. But to do so they will have to overcome their real-life issues and band together as the Power Rangers before it is too late.
Power Rangers will be released in cinemas on 24 March 2017. For all the latest movie news, pick up the new issue of SciFiNow.

Stan Against Evil trailer is full of gore, demons and witches

Read the official synopsis and watch the trailer for Stan Against Evil, starring John C McGinley, Nate Mooney, Deborah Baker Jr and Janet Varney, below:

Stan Against Evil follows Stan Miller (McGinley), a perpetually disgruntled former sheriff of a small New England town who was forced into retirement.  Stan has trouble relinquishing his authority to Evie Barret (Varney), the tough and beautiful new sheriff in town, but they form an unlikely alliance when both begin to realize things are not quite right in their quaint New England town.  Together, they valiantly fight a plague of unleashed demons that have been haunting the town, which just happens to be built on the site of a massive 17th century witch burning.
Stan Against Evil will premiere on IFC on 2 November 2016, with a UK air date and channel to be announced. For all the latest TV news, pick up the new issue of SciFiNow.

Justice League sneak preview celebrates end of filming

Well, it looks as if it's a wrap on Justice League! To celebrate the fact, director Zack Snyder posted the following video via Twitter, showing plenty of antics and hijinks from the cast and crew behind the scenes. There's waaaaaay too much going on to detail here, so just sit back and enjoy the video below:
https://twitter.com/ZackSnyder/status/784425976117747712?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
The film will see Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Gal Gadot, Jason Momoa, Ezra Miller and Ray Fisher suit up as the Justice League, with fellow cast members including Jesse Eisenberg, Amy Adams, Jeremy Irons and Wilem Dafoe.
Justice League will be released in cinemas on 17 November 2017. You can downloadThe 25 Greatest DC Comics Ever digital edition from GreatDigitalMags.com now. For more news about the biggest movies, pick up the latest issue of SciFiNow.

Black Panther adds Rogue One & Civil War stars

Already boasting an array of top acting talent, the cast of Marvel’s Black Panther movie has been bolstered even further by these latest additions.
Alongside Captain Marvel, this is the one we’re probably looking forward to the most out of Marvel’s crop of upcoming releases, and these names have only made it more so.

Forest Whitaker in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

First up is Forest Whitaker, who has lately been the beneficiary of if not a career revival (he was already doing fine), but definitely a boost, also having substantial roles in Arrival and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story on the horizon. Anyway, in Black Panther he will play Zuri, who is reportedly a senior figure in Wakandan society. There’s not much other information beyond that, but Whitaker being involved strengthens an already potent cast.

Florence Kasumba will reprise her role in Black Panther.

Another addition marks a reprisal of sorts, Florence Kasumba played a Dora Milaje (the Black Panther’s elite all-female bodyguards) in Captain America: Civil War, and while you can’t see much of her in that film, she does have a great deleted scene in which she effectively tells Black Widow to shift it, so clearly she’s gutsy. Hopefully she’ll get more time to shine in Black Panther.

Daniel Kaluuya in Black Mirror.

Last but not least, Daniel Kaluuya (whose genre credits include Kick-Ass 2, Black Mirror and Psychoville), as well as roles in Skins, Sicario, Chatroom and Welcome To The Punch) is playing W’Kabi, an ally to T’Challa. As far as supporting casts go, he definitely represents another solid addition.
Whitaker, Kasumba and Kaluuya join a cast that already includes Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa/Black Panther, Lupita Nyong’o as Nakia, Michael B Jordan as Eric Killmonger, Danai Gurira as Okoye and Winston Duke as M’Baku/Man-Ape, with Ryan Coogler directing from a script he co-wrote with Joe Robert Cole.
Black Panther will be released in cinemas on 9 February 2018. You can download The 25 Greatest Marvel Comics Ever digital edition from GreatDigitalMags.com now. For more news about the latest movies, pick up the new issue of SciFiNow.

Power Rangers (2017) - Teaser Trailer

Official teaser trailer for the new (2017) Power Rangers movie... Also, at 2 minutes I'd say it is more a trailer than a "teaser" trailer, perhaps it's a teaser as it doesn't go into the Power Rangers portion much.

As some note, it seems to be crossing the Breakfast Club with Chronicle with Power Rangers.

5 Ways Yeast Will Help Save Lives

Here’s a new result from the field of Chasmology that may or may not make you yawn: according to this study, yawning duration is correlated with brain size in mammals. How did these researchers uncover this correlation? Why, by watching YouTube videos of animals yawning, of course! The authors suggest that animals with bigger or more complex brains require longer yawns to get the full effects of the yawn, which (while still somewhat mysterious) may be related to brain cooling. And if you made it through all this talk of yawning without yawning yourself, then you’re definitely stronger than I am!
Yawn duration predicts brain weight and cortical neuron number in mammals
“Research indicates that the motor action pattern of yawning functions to promote cortical arousal and state change through enhanced intracranial circulation and brain cooling. Because the magnitude of this response likely corresponds to the degree of neurophysiological change, we hypothesized that interspecies variation in yawn duration would correlate with underlying neurological differences. Using openly accessible data, we show that both the mean and variance in yawn duration are robust predictors of mammalian brain weight and cortical neuron number (ρ-values > 0.9). Consistent with these effects, primates tend to have longer and more variable yawn durations compared with other mammals. Although yawning has long been considered a stereotyped action pattern, these findings reveal substantial variation in this response and highlight the importance of measuring yawn duration in future research.”
Related content:
Study finds that parakeet yawning is contagious. And super cute.
The purpose of yawning might be to cool your brain.
NCBI ROFL: Dogs catch human yawns.

What Scientists Learned by Dropping a Frozen, Dead Bird in Water

A dead, frozen gannet plunges into a tank. (Credit: B. Chang, M. Croson, L. Straker, S. Gart, C. Dove, J. Gerwin and Sunny Jung)

For sea birds like the gannet, diving is more of a way of life than an idle pastime.
They feed near the coast, dive-bombing en masse into the water to reach schools of fish swimming below. Gannets can dive from more than a hundred feet in the air, reaching speeds in excess of 60 miles per hour on the way down — a feat that would likely kill a human.
How the birds manage to avoid damaging their long, slender necks when pitching head-first into the water has been a longstanding mystery that required rather macabre methods to solve. In a new study, researchers from Virginia Tech conducted experiments with both a model consisting of cones and a rubber neck, and a dead, frozen gannet to see what happens when birds take the plunge.

Nature’s Own Missiles

Sunghwan Jung, a coauthor on the paper, and his team gathered data in the lab using slow-motion video and their 3-D printed model to see what happened when they tried various combinations of head shape, neck length and impact speed. But first they needed to see how an actual gannet entered the water.
Trained gannets are few and far in between, so researchers went for the next best thing: they borrowed a gannet specimen from the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, froze it into a diving position, and dropped it into the water.
They found that the key to the gannet dive is a combination of minimizing drag and stiffening the neck muscles to prevent too much motion. Gannets’ sharp beaks and long, narrow skulls help them enter the water cleanly and safely, and they straighten their necks just before hitting the water to protect the vertebrae. Their research was published Wednesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Almost As Good As the Real Thing

Researchers concluded that gannets are actually playing it safe when they dive: based on their physiology, they could likely hit the water as much as three times faster, says Sunghwan Jung, a coauthor of the paper.
The limits of an average human dive probably tops out at around 100 feet, says Jung, based on the maximum compressive force our vertebrae can take. That’s right around an average dive for a gannet.

4 Reasons You Should Never Use WordPress.com

First I want to clear up the confusion between WordPress, WordPress.com and WordPress.org.
WordPress is WordPress right? Not really. There are very important differences between them.

Firstly there is WordPress – the blogging software platform. Secondly there is WordPress.org – the organization that provides you with free downloadable installations of the WordPress software. Finally there’s WordPress.com – the commercial entity that provides you with the WordPress software as a service which is ready to use. Phew!
You can download and install a free version of WordPress from WordPress.org yourself. Alternatively you can install it easily through some hosting providers listed here. This means that you and your hosting provider are responsible for your WordPress installation. It also means that you need to do backups, security updates and any upgrades that are necessary yourself.


 

The other option is where you use the WordPress blogging software hosted on WordPress.com servers. All backups, security updates and upgrades are handled for you by WordPress.com.
However, there are a number of constraints which I outline below.
Here are some of the biggest surprises I got when working with WordPress.com.

1. You Can’t Alter Page Structure

While you can change HTML in the body of your page, you have no access to the HTML of the <head> and <footer> sections of your page. You also have no access to the PHP files you would normally have access to on a self-hosted WordPress.org installation. What this also means is that you can’t add CSS or JavaScript links or blocks to your webpage as you normally would.
Any Javascript code added to the body of your page is cleanly removed when you update the page. So how can you add in that cool new JavaScript widget you use on all your other websites? You can’t. You are limited to whatever widgets WordPress.com provides you with.
When it comes to displaying multiple images there are 2 options – as a slide show and as a gallery.
Thinking of embedding an <iframe> from another site as a workaround? It won’t work. WordPress.com has a list of external sites it allows connections to and chances are your site is not one of them.
So how do you add custom behavior to your WordPress.com website? You can choose from a list of embeddable options such as YouTube and Google Maps as well as a list of supported widgets. There are a number of widgets you can use but the list is by no means exhaustive.

2. Limited Themes & Plug-Ins

Plugins are one of the many features that makes WordPress a pleasure to use. How about if you wanted to install some plugins? You can’t do it.
It’s as simple as that.
With a self-hosted WordPress.org site, you can install as many themes as you like and from any source such as Theme Forest. With WordPress.com you are constrained to the themes they allow.
There are 160 themes at the moment. Some are free and others are premium themes (cost money). With WordPress.org, the number of available themes is endless.

Because you can’t change the structure of the page, you are quite dependent on the structure of your theme and the features that the author allows you to change. This becomes an issue because each theme has different options you can and cannot change.

Some have footers you can change, some do not. Each has a different size header image. It can be quite tedious to find a theme that is both suitable in layout and functionality.

3. It Costs To Add Style

You’ve finally settled on a theme and now you want to change a few little things. On WordPress.com you need to purchase a Custom Design Upgrade to use customized CSS on your blog. Currently it sells for $30 per blog per year. It could get quite pricey depending on the number of blogs you want to customize.

For the $30 Custom Design Upgrade you get a simple text editor to update your CSS. There is no visual editor.

In addition, you are not allowed to hide the copyright information on your theme. This is fine for personal blogs but may not be for a business blog or if you are creating blogs for clients.
You also don’t have access to the mobile theme for your blog – even if you purchased the Custom Design Upgrade. This is fine if the mobile theme “just works.” But sometimes it doesn’t.

The above screen is skewed on iPhone 4 with the image border running all the way down the screen:

4. The Content and Copyright Issue

Actually, there is no issue about who “owns” the content on a WordPress.com site. Their TOS states clearly that they have royalty-free access to your data to promote your blog:
“By submitting Content to Automattic for inclusion on your Website, you grant Automattic a world-wide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, modify, adapt and publish the Content solely for the purpose of displaying, distributing and promoting your blog. If you delete Content, Automattic will use reasonable efforts to remove it from the Website, but you acknowledge that caching or references to the Content may not be made immediately unavailable.”
There’s also the question about termination:
“ Automattic may terminate your access to all or any part of the Website at any time, with or without cause, with or without notice, effective immediately.”
WordPress.com may also choose to place advertisements on your website. You can have these removed by paying $30 a blog per blog per year.