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Bipolar disorder – also known as manic depression is a serious mental illness which is defined as episodes of disturbances in mood. It causes mood swings between two extreme things; in one hand excessive elation, energy and self esteem, and on the other hand helplessness, hopelessness and a severe depression. The first one is called mania and the second is depression, however between these extremes there may be a phase called hypomania which is mild to moderate mania.

First symptom of manic depression could be hypomania. In this state the person has an increasing energy. The person may laugh so much at things that he did not find even funny earlier and tries to take all the attention. During the hypomania, the person feels good and will possibly deny that if anything is wrong, thus bipolar disorder is generally can not be recognized by patient’s relatives, friends or even physicians.

Types of Mood Episodes

Manic Episode (Mania): Mania is a serious clinical condition which can be defined as a severely elevated mood. The person who suffers from mania has decreased need for sleep, hyperactivity, irritability, delusions and excessive anger or rage. It may lead the person to act so hasty and spontaneous. They have difficulties in making decisions and concentrating. During the manic episode, one always denies that something is wrong; however experiencing the mania is quite disturbing and unpleasant. Manic episode lasts at least a week.

Hypomanic Episode (Hypomania): Hypomania is a milder type of mania. During this episode, one may feel very creative, coming up with new ideas, has a high self esteem and is more talkative than usual. Hypomanic episode lasts at least four days.

Major Depressive Episode (Depression): Major Depressive episode may last at least two weeks.

Mixed Episode: In mixed episode, the person experiences both manic and depressive episodes and it may last at least a week.

Related posts:

1. Dysthymic Disorder (Dysthymia)
2. What is Depression? (major depression)
3. Personal Properties Affecting Depression

The number of people who want to work but haven’t looked for a job in a month increased from 2.32 million in November to 2.49 million in December.

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Remember a few months ago when we noted that all the heads of the major Hollywood studios had changed their tune, in the light of reports of yet another record box office year, to start claiming that movie piracy was harming indie movie producers, even as many of them had learned to embrace the internet to do quite well for themselves? It seems the same basic thing has been happening in the music business as well. We’ve already noted how folks like Bono and Paul McCartney have been heard complaining to the press about how piracy was harming up-and-coming musicians (noting they couldn’t really complain given their success).

However, Steve Lawson, whose thoughts on the music industry we’ve discussed in the past, has penned something of an open letter to all these rock stars, noting that the up-and-coming musicians don’t need their help:

So, dear Rock Stars — the problem here is not with the internet. It’s not with how it ‘hurts’ the little people. WE LOVE IT! It’s you. You and your expectations of wealth-beyond-measure are screwed. And I don’t care.

Here’s a headline for you — in the 3 weeks since I made ‘Behind Every Word’ available for free download, I’ve sold more CDs and downloads that in any one month since 6 months after it first came out.

This a four year old album. I’ve done no gigs in that time, I’ve taken out no ads, I’ve not given away a single bit of physical anything that cost me money. I’ve just talked about it, and invited people to listen to it. And guess what? They listened, and those who really liked it THEN PAID. And they paid more for the ‘free’ download they they do on iTunes.

I couldn’t possibly have done it without ‘free music’, without the internet, without sharing, without streaming. Nor could I have done it within the insanely restrictive copyright terms of a standard recording contract.

Shane Richmond, who pointed Lawson’s post out to me, notes that (of course) some will respond (as they always do, every time we post an example of a success story) that musicians like Lawson are “outliers” and successes on the margin. But, Richmond, notes, the true outliers are the folks like Bono and McCartney:

Steve — and the growing number of artists like him — will probably be dismissed as outliers taking a path that works for a lucky few but not for everyone. The thing is, that’s true of the record industry too. A lucky few artists get rich while the majority are hoping just to break even before they have to give up their dreams and go and get a proper job.

Indeed. This is the very point that we’ve been trying to make so long. So many of the artists that we highlight as success stories would never have been successful at all without the internet and embracing what it allows. Because the old system was entirely about outliers. The traditional recording business was a lottery ticket. A tiny few made it. And everyone else failed. With what technology allows today, plenty of musicians will fail to make a living. It’s no guarantee that anyone can be a success. But there are much greater opportunities, and (the best part) musicians have more control and say in how their careers go, giving them a greater chance to actually be successful on their own terms, not the terms of four large (but shrinking) companies, and the very small number of rock stars they helped succeed in the past.

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The percentage of the total population that is of working age decreased slightly from 58.5% in November to 58.2% December.

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Attention-seeking vamp Tila Tequila has been unceremoniously banned from the upcoming funeral of her dearly-departed “wifey” Casey Johnson — and the pint-sized minx is not pleased!

A source close to Tequila tells UsMagazine.com that she’s devastated she won’t be able to milk the situation ’til the last drop pay her final respects to the Johnson & Johnson heiress: “She wants so badly to go to the funeral, but nobody will give her the details or tell her anything. She is extremely frustrated, as what she shared with Casey was real and special. Nobody understood.”

Over the weekend Tila told E! News: “I don’t want to talk about the funeral. I wasn’t allowed to go, and I am so upset. I can’t sleep, and I am on suicide watch.”

The former MTV reality star, 28, has raised eyebrows (Doesn’t she always?) with her erratic behavior in the days since news of Casey’s death broke last Monday evening. Word is the Johnson Clan is uncomfortable with Tila’s foul-mouthed rants and cheerful photo-ops over the past week.

Aaron gets a demo of the BlackBerry Presenter at CES Las Vegas 2010.

Traffic sucks. It is a waste of time and of fuel. But even though we have congestion problems of our own in America, it is nothing like the Netherlands, where an estimated 70 million hours a year are wasted by the populace stuck in traffic. The problem is so bad that in 2012 a new law goes in effect in the Netherlands that will tax drivers based on how many kilometers they drive. As Europe’s most densely populated and congested country, Dutch politicians hope a hefty tax levied against most drivers will encourage people to use public transportation and lessen their legendary congestion problems.

Here is the caveat that caught my eye though. Dutch officials estimate that 6 out of 10 motorists will end up paying less, because the new tax will replace registration and the 25% (!!!!!!!!!) sales tax on new cars. So why would people drive less, if it costs less?

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TrimTabs CEO Charles Biderman continued his crusade against the government’s official stats and involvement in financial markets in an interview Friday with BNN. In it, he argues that the private demand — from companies, investors, hedge funds, and pensions — just isn’t there.

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See Also:

• TrimTabs: Here’s How A Flawed Holiday Seasonal Adjustment Made The Jobs Data Look Way Better Than The Reality
• TrimTabs CEO Biderman: Was The Fed Responsible For The Entire Rally Since March?
• TrimTabs: The Real Job Loss Number Was 255,000

The percentage of people unemployed for more than 26 weeks as part of the total population increased from 2.49% in November to 2.59% in December.

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The number of people unemployed for more than 26 weeks increased from 5.9 million in November to 6.1 million in December.

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NYTimes’ T Magazine catches up with designer and shop owner, Billy Reid to talk a little bit about his beginnings, his designs, collaborations, and more. The whole interview can be read at T Magazine.

Noted blog package WordPress keeps coming out with maybe more releases than you’d care for, fixing exploits and bugs, but also steadily improving functionality.  By comparison, it has been very quiet around Movable Type. That is, until last week, when the long-awaited version 5 was released. So was it worth the wait?

Well, the software now has versioning. And what the company calls a "new theme mechanism that makes it easy to apply a new theme across a website and blogs with a single click." More strikingly, though, the interface has certainly been freshened up a lot. It looks a lot more coherent and modern. In fact, it looks a lot like WordPress.

So this isn’t exactly the release that’ll get Movable Type — once an uncontested leader — firmly ahead in the blogging game again. The differences are still the same architectural ones (MT’s static publishing and Perl underpinnings, vs. WP’s dynamic publishing and PHP) that we outline in some detail in our evaluation research. And, certainly with the new interface, I think Movable Type still maintains a slight edge over WordPress when you want to manage multiple blogs.

Perhaps the largest differentiator is still the corporate culture. A telling example is the fact that MT5 isn’t available for enterprise customers yet; "We will put Movable Type 5 under extensive scalability and performance testing before we release it in the Enterprise version. This will take several months." Compare that to WordPress’ immediate, unpredictable releases; you’re expected to have faith in a new WordPress MU (multi-user) version because it’s used with millions of users on wordpress.com. That may be comforting, but it’s not exactly a guarantee.

So right now, Movable Type and WordPress remain outwardly similar, but with key differences once you dig into them. For current customers of either package, those differences are not likely important enough to merit switching. But if you’re still looking for an enterprise-wide blogging platform, it also means you’ll have to check which is best for you more carefully than ever.

While Google continues to digitize everything from the view from the driver’s seat to the contents of your appointment book, their tremendous attempt at digitizing the written word, Google Books, has run into a snag in the most ironic of places – China. While the country is infamous for copyright infringement, especially of intellectual property, it too is working to prevent the unfair use of its citizen’s copyrighted works.

Bloomberg reported this morning that Google “has agreed to meet demands from a local writers’ group that it stop scanning and uploading books to the company’s online library without authors’ permission.”

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The company found itself in a Chinese court last month facing allegations of copyright infringement by Chinese author Mian Mian, whose book can still be seen in preview on the Google service.

This certainly isn’t the first time Google has run into complaints over its practices with the project. Last month, the company was convicted of violating France’s copyright laws. A Globe and Mail report on Google’s practices stated that over 80% of the French books offered were still under copyright. The company has also faced criticism in Germany over its Google Books service, where today the German minister of Justice warned that the company may be reaching monopoly status, requiring government intervention.

The Bloomberg article notes that in China, Google trails behind the search engineBaidu. This is in a country with more Internet users than the entire population of the United States. But is the problem of supposed copyright infringement a public relations issue in a country where the average consumer sees counterfeit products in nearly every storefront window? While we stand on the side of writers getting paid for their work, we’re not sure this issue would really stand in the way of Google gaining popularity in China.

Discuss

Volkswagen kicked-off what it promises will be a big year in Detroit this morning with the world premiere of the Compact Coupe. Described as a car that appeals to the “head and heart in equal measure”, the four-seat, front wheel drive hybrid concept combines miserly fuel economy of 45 mpg (combined) and CO2 emissions of 98 g/km with performance figures of 0-60 mph in 8.6 seconds and a quoted top speed of 141 mph (227 kmh).
..

Tags: Hybrid,
naias 2010,
Volkswagen

Related Articles:

• Subaru’s treat for the eyes: the Hybrid Tourer Concept
• Porsche Plans Cayenne with Hybrid Engine
• Paris Motor Show highlights: Honda’s new Insight hybrid
• MINI shows production-ready two-seat Coupe
• Toyota’s radical Compact Sports & Specialty Concept
• Lexus transforms LF-A concept into a roadster

It was recently discovered that an application on the Android Marketplace posing as a legitimate banking application was actually a cover for a phishing app attempting to gain user names and passwords. Although the malicious application was quickly identified and removed from the Android Marketplace it is still advised that you check your device for any applications from developer “Droid09” and delete them immediately. The application targeted customers of First Tech Credit Union. While the financial institution wishes to ensure customers know of this type of fraud, they also assure them that accessing their account via the web browser from your device is still 100% secure.

As a side effect of this incident we start to wonder whether Google’s application review process is really the most secure and effective. After a developer posts an application in the Android Marketplace users are able to download it within an hour. One of the largest positives to choosing Android over an iPhone for developers and users alike was the fact that applications would not sit through lengthy review processes and users could access any type of application no matter what functional purpose it served; besides malicious ones.

So I pose to you this question… Should Google review its Marketplaces policies and review process? Or is it fine as it is?

(via First Tech Credit Union)

@MatthewPatience

The Simpsons Unleashed is an Adobe Air app that has Homer Simpson keeping you company on your desktop while you work. The app also lets you play digital tricks on your friends and invite them to compete with you to see who becomes the Prince O’Pranks. First, invite your friends from Facebook to download the app. Then compete with each other to see who can send the most pranks to each other’s desktops. You’ll get scored for your pranks and even be able to win trophies. Some of the pranks include “Nuke your neighbor” – Who knew radiation was this much fun? and “Bomb-zai!” – What goes better with computers than soaking them with water? Because the Simpsons Unleashed is an Adobe Air app, it is also both Mac & PC compatible, or in Lisa’s case, it’s Mapple compatible.