"Who thinks it just to be judged by a single error?"
- Beryl Markham
Nov 23, 2012
Nov 22, 2012
Nov 21, 2012
Nov 20, 2012
Bamboo Billboard!
Last year L.A.-based artist
Stephen Glassman, who has apparently been making bamboo art installations for
two decades, made a small-scale art project called Urban Air that involved a
miniature billboard-bamboo setup. After it got some attention, leading billboard-maker
Summit Media agreed to donate billboards in busy areas of Los Angeles for the
first prototype.
It works by removing the
advertisement-ready facade and retrofitting a billboard’s metal husk to contain
planters, live bamboo and a watering system. The installation includes
environmental sensors and is connected to wifi.
A new Kickstarter
project [love the kickstarter connection, I may investigate] is trying to raise
$100,000 to hire all the electrical and structural engineers needed to build
it. The goal is a bamboo billboard kit that could be installed anywhere.
Imagine if, instead of
advertisements screaming about taxes and abortion and Obamacare, we were bathed in
soothing placards of calm. Americans are exposed to 5,000
advertisements a day, as Treehugger points out--so this sounds
like a welcome reprieve. You can learn more about the project here.
Nov 19, 2012
Don't Be Angry!
Anger arises when someone or
something has not fulfilled expectations, an injustice has been done, someone
has attacked oneself or one's idea or property, or when things are not
happening fast enough or slow enough.
We become reactive. We lose
our temper. The degree to which we "lose it" and
the nature of our behavior is influenced by the degree to
which we are mindfully aware of our thoughts, speech and actions, our ability
to control ourselves and the significance of the perceived threat.
Reactive behavior gets in the way of accomplishing objectives and
does damage to relationships. What can we do to avoid anger and, if we can't
avoid it, what can we do to moderate its effects (how can we learn to not
react)?
Managing Anger
While eliminating anger by cutting its root causes may be possible
it is most practical to learn to effectively manage anger when it does
arise.
To manage anger understand its source, recognize and acknowledge it
and then step back from the feelings and choose a course of action.
The source of anger is within. It may be triggered by external
events but its cause is internal. This is clear when we remember times when we
became angry about something that at other times did not "make us
angry." This understanding makes it possible to look inside and
manage anger without blaming it on anyone or anything else. We don't need to
change the world around us. We have to change ourselves.
Admitting to anger is difficult for some people. But difficult or
not it is necessary. Unacknowledged, anger may be suppressed, resulting in
physical and psychological issues, including gastrointestinal and breathing
problems. Suppressed anger tends to build up and then burst out in overreaction
to a minor incident.
What does anger feel like to you? Where in your body does it
manifest? Is it a tightening of the stomach or jaw; a change in the
breath? The earlier in its arising you recognize it, the more likely it
is that you can avoid reacting to it.
The next step after recognition and acknowledgement is acceptance.
In accepting anger we go beyond simplistic notions that experiencing anger is
sinful or bad. Experiencing anger is part of being human.
Identifying with anger, "being angry", and acting anger
out are unskillful and can be controlled.
Choosing a Response
With anger understood as a self generated emotion, recognized and
accepted the next step is to decide what to do about it.
One choice is to explore its source in oneself. Seeing the
underlying cause in oneself cuts the root of the anger and eliminates or at
least makes the feelings manageable. Ask "What am I bringing to
this situation?"
But there is the external the trigger. Someone has done something
that has "made you angry". Do you just let it pass while you manage
the anger by yourself?
Maybe that is the best thing to do. Perhaps the threatened belief
or mental model is not one you want to keep. Maybe the person whose behavior
got you angry didn't mean anything by it. Maybe the perceived injustice is
unavoidable. By fully experiencing and seeing the internal source of your anger
you can let it go. It is not suppressed, it passes. Like everything else, anger is temporary.
Of course, you can feed it and make it last for years, but how effective is
that as a strategy?
On the other hand, confronting behavior that gives rise to anger
may be the better choice. Often there is no good reason to be a
victim or to remain passive in the face of injustice.
If action is the better choice then take action consciously.
Reactive behavior is generally less effective than responsive behavior. Use the
energy aroused by your anger to fuel clear thinking and skillful action rather
than to just be expressed unconsciously based on your habitual way of dealing
with anger.
Your habitual way may be denial, passive aggressive or aggressive.
You may seethe and plot over time or react immediately. But, are you going to
get a result that is beneficial to yourself and the others involved?
Break your habits. Decide on the right course of action for the
situation.
Intention
If your intention is to do no harm to others, to seek optimal
resolutions to conflicts and build healthy and lasting relationships, then the
right course of action will help to achieve those ends.
Unfortunately, we see all too many examples of people who just
vent their anger because they can't bear the pain it brings them, or who
must get even, righteously destroy the wicked, or protect some idea or belief.
Just look around at the anger that is vented on the streets of Pakistan, Egypt
and Libya over an affront to Islam or the murder of doctors who work at
abortion clinics by Christians in the U.S. Look too at your behavior and the
behavior of people you know in your work place or personal relationships.
What is your choice, to understand, recognize, accept and
skillfully manage anger or to react?
Nov 17, 2012
HexLithium Crystals
Does not have the same ring to it as DiLithium, but interesting non-the-less.
We have not been able to venture out very far into space. One of the main reasons for that is that space is so
frustratingly massive. Voyager 1 is the fastest man-made thing ever, but 10.5
miles per second is a piffling fraction of the speed of light. Even getting to
one of our nearest neighbours, Mars, would take six to
eight months using conventional spaceship engines.
Source
We have not been able to venture out very far into space. One of the main reasons for that is that space is so
frustratingly massive. Voyager 1 is the fastest man-made thing ever, but 10.5
miles per second is a piffling fraction of the speed of light. Even getting to
one of our nearest neighbours, Mars, would take six to
eight months using conventional spaceship engines.
Ideas like warp drives are still theoretical, and unlikely to be seen within our lifetimes.
However, it might be possible to cut that trip to Mars down to as few as three
months using a form of fusion fuel — “dilithium crystals.” Yep, just
like Star Trek.
It’s not quite the same, of course. In the sci-fi series, the
crystals are a rare substance that the crew spend an inordinate amount of time
searching for, and their engines can use it to travel faster than the speed of
light. This engine, currently under development at the University
of Hunstville by a team working in
collaboration with Boeing, NASA and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, would by
comparison be about twice as fast as the best current technology.
According to Txchnologist, General Electric’s online
tech magazine, this fusion reactor would be fueled by “a few tonnes” of deuterium (a heavy
isotope of hydrogen) and lithium-6 (a stable molecule of lithium) in a
crystalline structure — hence the “dilithium crystal” claim.
When the deuterium and the
lithium-6 are forced together under high pressure they undergo a fusion
reaction — a process which they’re still trying to turn into a net producer of
energy. While fusion isn’t yet a viable fuel source, recent
developments in the field seem to
indicate that we can’t be far away.
The engine, dubbed the “Charger-1 Pulsed Power Generator”, would be
constructed in space along with the rest of the spaceship to avoid the tricky
engineering difficulties of getting all that delicate fusion equipment up
through the atmosphere — just like the International Space Station. Once ready,
the reactor would be engaged, and millions of amps are passed through
super-thin lithium wires in 100 nanosecond pulses — this could generate up to
three terrawatts of power. Those wires vaporise into plasma, which is
collapsed onto the core of deuterium and lithium-6, inducing a fusion reaction.
The energy from that would be forced out the back of the ship in a
so-called “z-pinch” using a “magnetic nozzle”, a component which the team are
also developing. The engine’s potential top speed? Over 100,000km/h. That’s
roughly the same speed at which the Earth orbits the Sun.
Source
Nov 16, 2012
Click to Find Your Water Source!
Condensation, evaporation, precipitation… yes, all these “-ations” have something to do
with where your water comes
from.
But even if you understand the basic science behind the water
cycle, do you really know the source of the water that flows from your tap?
According to a 2011 Nature Conservancy poll, 77% of Americans don’t know where
their water comes from.
Now there’s a remedy for that: The Nature Conservancy has created
an interactive map of the drinking water
sources for 493 cities across the globe, including 27 of the largest cities in
the United States. If you are one of the 414 million people around the world
living within these areas, you can now hop online and click around to find which rivers,
lakes and streams supply water to your tap. Check it out.
Appreciate each person’s
effort and give this feedback in a frequent and timely manner. This allows employees
to value their progress. This is often more energizing than any one-off
bonus.
We found that if you look at the condition of the land that
supplies water to 27 of the largest cities in the U.S., these lands are made up
of:
8% urban/suburban lands;
15% agricultural lands;
37% protected lands;
41% private, undeveloped lands.
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