How the Medici, monks, and the British Empire shaped your office Early origin in monasteries Beginning around the fifth century, monks that lived and worked inmonasteriespreserved ancient culture by copying and translating religious books, including theBible, which was translated from Hebrew and Greek to Latin. Theworkspacesduring this time consisted mainly of a table, covered with cloth to protect the books, and a writing room, or “scriptorium” in Latin. It was common for monks to stand before their writing desks in the scriptorium – a practice that has come back into fashion with the advent of the standing desk in recent years....

How the new age spirituality of #manifestions can make companies toxic #Manifest the life you want Manifestation draws on a long-favored new age philosophy ofuniversal inter-relatedness: the belief that everything in the universe is related in a network without a deity at the centre. This gives rise to the belief that with positive thoughts and visualization, people can create their own reality through the laws of manifestation, where an external force – the universe – responds to these thoughts....

I carried a Sig Sauer on my hip and an iPod in my pocket, but I was only authorized to use the pistol while on watch. It was March 2003. The second gen iPod had already launched, but most of us were still rocking the first gens because that’s what they sold at the Navy Exchange back home and on the ship. My position, that night, was as a gate guard....

How the physics concept of ‘negentropy’ can change your life Minimize energy loss, maximize progress In both physics and social systems, energy can be defined as the capacity or ability to do work. For more than two decades, I have studied social systems in schools, community dialogues, universities, corporations, and nonprofit organizations. During that time I’ve observed that energy losses are a constant – for example, meetings of four people to plan meetings for seven people, or everyone’s worst nightmare, meetings that could have been accomplished through email....

In the digital age, politics can often seem stuck in the past and unable to keep up with the pace of technology. One exception to this is the Pirate Party movement. Emerging in Sweden in the middle of the last decade, it quickly spread around Europe and the world, with a political emphasis on issues like copyright and privacy. A surge in interest in the Pirate Party movement began after Sweden’s party sawsuccessin the 2009 European Elections....