Best of the Web: 2 July

Best of the Web: 2 July

10 tips to find happiness at work; Twitter musings in Syria elicit groans in Washington; Want to lose weight? Try sex and shopping

July 2, 2010 2:31 by Rasha Reslan

10 tips to find happiness at work

If “happiness at work” sounds like an oxymoron, then these tips are for you.

“Happiness is in vogue, and everyone – from psychologists and academics to career coaches –has advice on how to find it and how to keep it,” Forbes says.

Up your tranquility quotient by judging less, moving on, and “quieting the chaos by redirecting your thoughts.” Check out these common sense, Zen-inspired approaches for a kinder, gentler workplace.

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Twitter musings in Syria elicit groans in Washington

With all the press Syria is getting these days, Mr. Assad and his administration defy an easy branding. Damascus is flush with tourist money, and you might just get elbowed in the face by all the EU-types bargaining in the souks and snapping photos in the Omayyad mosque.

But America’s keeping its game face on – at least officially. So when two young State Department officials, part of a delegation to Syria, tweeted their light and favorable impressions of the Damascus experience, the powers that be were not amused.

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Want to lose weight? Try sex and shopping

Why keep up that expensive gym membership, when you can you can just up the sex and shopping quotient and come out all the slimmer for it? So goes the wisdom when the calorie obsessed strap on the high tech Ki Fit lifestyle armband.

This pricy little gadget, which retails for around GBP 100, employs sensors that continuously monitor “motion, steps, body temperature, heat flux and galvanic skin response,” the Independent reported. The happy findings? To stay slim, go heavy on the romance and retail therapy.

“During a manic shopping trip – I just had to have that jumpsuit – I was seeing off three-and-a-half calories a minute, the same rate as at my weekly line-dancing class. I always knew shopping was good for me. Sex sheds calories too: an extended session of rumpy-pumpy with my beloved waves goodbye to 3.7 calories per minute,” the Independent’s journalist found.

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Fantastic presentation on how to analyze and think about gold prices

If turbulent financial winds have you thinking about tangible assets, you’re not alone. Investors with shaky confidence are asking hard questions about the soft metal. As Reuters reported last week, gold prices are within sight of $1,260 – just $10 off their all-time high.

So get savvy about gold and find out when the experts expect gold prices to rise, whether gold is a reliable “fear gauge,” and how the glittery stuff hedge’s against inflation. It’s all here, in this step by step guide to getting a handle on the investment potential of gold.

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Gaza besieged

Despite Israel’s blockade of the Gaza strip, Palestinians desperate for supplies have constructed an “intricate network of tunnels – circumventing Israel’s stifling trade restrictions.”

This audio-video story from the Economist features the photographs of Bruno Stevens.