Recommendations Part I

I always appreciate when a product or service does just what you would want them to do. Elsewhere on this blog I mention the Roomba (made by iRobot) as something we are happy with having purchased and that it does what it claimed it does. I don't think I always appreciated good service but then the 80's happened and the idea of providing good service or a good product became thought of as silly idea in the minds of the producers and was excepted by us weak-kneed consumers.


One idea of Deepak Chopra and the Wellness people is that appreciation - somewhere described as a Savoring, a unit of mindful appreciation, a moment of conscious enjoyment, and thankfulness, lead directly to wellness/ happiness. So I try to be appreciative as often as I can remember to be. I hope other people will add their recommendations to this post in the comments so we can appreciate those things too.


Another thing I appreciate is a product called Voltaren Emugeltm. It works really well for aches and pains and has no offensive odor. I was telling a friend how well it works and she informed me there is an analgesic in it. Oh! no wonder it works so well. But this means people already taking blood-thinners or for other medical reasons, should not use it,  so I recommend it with that caveat. For ages 16 and over.


I have enjoyed very much some of the podcasts at iTunes called iTunes U about history and in regular podcasts a series of lectures to his students (and us) by Kevin de Laplante called The Critical Thinker. It comes in five parts. I have found it very interesting. As he talked I would imagine all the arguments made by the opposite side of myself politically using these, such as fallacy. Kevin tells a good story about how, thanks to a glitch, his podcast was featured on a list and his logo was featured prominently (taking up 1/3 of the page). In two months, he gained more than 8,000 subscribers, no doubt that mistake helped? He says that his podcasts, both video and audio, have reached more people than he has in his 14 years of university teaching. Other podcasts I would recommend is The Greater Good series, especially the one featuring Jonathon Haidt and the podcast featuring Margaret Atwood in the Big Ideas category. I am thankful that people have made all this available to the rest of us. It's all free and I think you can listen at iTunes without an iPod, you'd have to download iTunes but that is free too. 


So the list so far:
Roomba
Voltaren
Podcasts

please contribute more!


"Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.” - Plato