Web Gamblings Galore

The revolution is just getting started and will begin to make
its mark this year. By 2010, it will begin to take off. By 2025,
it will be the standard for all TV viewing. It’s called Internet
Protocol Television, or IPTV for short. IPTV works with a
set-top box connected to any broadband interface and to a TV. It
will allow users to choose among thousands (and eventually
hundreds of thousands) of hours of programming, including
movies, sports, classic TV, etc., and download their selections
from the internet to the hard drive of the set-top box.
Initially, set-top box hard drives will be able to store up to
300 hours of programming at a time, but capacity will expand as
the technology becomes more refined. Also, download times will
become shorter and shorter as broadband connection speeds become
faster and faster. Eventually, a two-hour movie will be fully
downloadable in a couple of minutes. Once the programs are
downloaded to the hard drive, they can be viewed on the
connected TV at any time via a DVR-type interface provided by
the set-top box. Besides the convenience of an all
video-on-demand (VOD) environment, IPTV will provide a much
wider range of programming than broadcast, cable, and satellite
TV, or even major video chains, could ever provide. Because the
programming is available from the internet, it will be almost
completely unlimited and unconstrained. Programming from all
over the world will be available along with every imaginable
genre of niche programming. Also, previously unreleased
independent films that have been sitting on shelves for years
due to the lack of a distribution source will suddenly become
available to the masses via IPTV. Films that previously could
not be made at all will become a reality and be available on the
IPTV services. Long forgotten films and TV shows will have new
life breathed into them by IPTV. To top it all off, much of this
programming will be eventually be available in high definition
(HDTV)! Most IPTV platforms will be divided into “channels”, but
not the same kind of channels that we have grown accustomed to
with traditional TV services. In this case, a “channel” is
defined as a division of an IPTV service by individual content
provider. Each content provider carried by a given IPTV platform
will have its own guidelines for delivering programming on its
channel. Some will provide their content for free to everyone
who owns a given IPTV product. Some will be subscription based,
i.e., everything on their channels will be available for a
monthly or annual subscription. Others will be all pay-per-view.
Still others will provide a combination of all of the above.
Several entrants into this market have either already debuted or
plan to debut sometime this year. Among those are Akimbo
(www.akimbo.com), DAVETV (www.dave.tv), TimeShifTV
(www.timeshiftv.com), and VCinema (www.vcinema.com). Please see
their respective websites for more details, as each one will
offer a slightly different variation of IPTV technology. In
addition, a joint venture between TiVo (www.tivo.com) and
NetFlix (www.netflix.com) will be starting up later this year.
TiVo plans to eventually make the entire Netflix DVD library
available to its customers on an on-demand basis via a broadband
connection to a TiVo box and a TV. Other potential IPTV
contenders will be announcing their intentions over the next
year or two. One of these nascent IPTV services headquartered
near my home has already started placing “help wanted” ads in my
local newspaper. Within the next 20 years, all the fuss over
broadcast TV indecency will become irrelevant, as there will be
very little other than news and live sporting events on
broadcast TV. The major networks will shift most of their
entertainment programs to IPTV to avoid all the broadcast
content restrictions currently being enforced by the FCC.
Eventually, broadcast TV will cease to exist. Cable and
satellite services as we know them will also become extinct.
Yes, there will still be cable and satellite platforms, but
they, along with DSL and wireless internet services, will exist
merely as conduits for bringing broadband internet into homes
and offices. There won’t be any more cable and satellite TV, per
se. The now 60-year-old paradigm of television schedules in
which programs air at specific times on specific days of the
week will pretty much be a thing of the past. Everything, except
what’s left of broadcast TV, will be exclusively available on
demand via an IPTV platform. These developments in no way mean
that all TV programming will become more risqué. While there
will be plenty of risqué programming available to those who want
it, there will an almost unlimited supply of family and
religious programs available. With a veritable smorgasbord of
entertainment options at your fingertips, there will be
something available for all tastes. IPTV may not turn out to be
a TV utopia, but it’s at least going to come close that ideal.

According to Tom Verzi, Director of Marketing for PRONTO North America, “Hidden in the depths of enterprise databases are the patterns and trends that can shape the future of manufacturers and distributors. The PRONTO-Xi Analytics provides the ability to discover sales trends and buying patterns.”

Other key benefits of the PRONTO-XI Analytics include:

* Comparing sales performance and product profitability

* Identifying competitive threats and resource waste

* Eliminating reliance on IT to save time and money

* Replacing assumptions with factual information

Pronto North America, Inc. based in Eden Prairie, MN, is widely recognized as the authority in technologically driven business solutions and process management. Utilizing innovative implementation techniques and tools, Pronto North America generates increased performance, service, efficiency, and accountability. Through PEER (Process Evaluation Executive Review), Pronto North America captures the values of Lean Manufacturing throughout the enterprise. This functionality is accomplished utilizing a highly-trained world-class staff and an innovative process modeling and automation toolset unmatched in the industry, ensuring the realization of continuous process improvement and profitability.

Pronto North America is the North American Master Distributor of PRONTO-Xi, a comprehensive software system allowing manufacturers, distributors, and retailers to effectively manage all phases of their business. Far beyond just another Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) System, PRONTO-Xi’s financial and distribution applications are unique and have provided maximum return on investment for a wide variety of organizations since 1976. From PRONTO Production to PRONTO Advanced Warehousing; from PRONTO Planning to PRONTO Quality Management System (QMS); from PRONTO Distribution Requirements Planning (DRP) to PRONTO Forecasting Management, the cross-section and breadth of integrated elements addressed by PRONTO-Xi is unmatched in the marketplace and justifies its natural leadership role as the best fully integrated business software solution.

Pronto North America www.prontoerp.com Tom Verzi tverzi@prontoerp.com 952-942-5858

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Public liability cover is crucial for the reason that all companies are at risk to some degree. Albeit nothing grim has ever gone on with your organisations property doesn’t promise that it will not someday in near the future. If an individual or group of people are hurt, or their property stolen, it is your contractual duty to appropriately repay them. This cost could be enormously dear, depending on the sort of case.

Luckily, you do have numerous methods to shield yourself for this happening. Procuring public liability insurance lets you to breathe a tad easier. If a specific claim is very expensive, the insurance organisation will be there to offer a safety net. Its their contractual responsibility to guarantee that you are sheltered from any claims & legal charges brought against you. This leaves you free to focus on actually doing business, rather than thinking about what may happen. The following are some instances of times when public liability indemnity can come in useful.

CEOs of plumbing firms usually get the job finished quick and right. But, every once in a while something can go very wrong. For instance, if you inadvertently break a client’s tubes whilst on the job, affecting possessions such as laptops & carpeting, public liability indemnity will be there to cover the receipt.

An additional instance is that of a promotions organisation. If a customer were to fracture an ankle in your office, even if it’s not your fault, you would be held answerable. Still, with public liability indemnity you wouldn’t have to resolve the claim at all.

In a comparable situation, injury caused to a passerby by a member of staff on a construction site is the legal accountability of the corporation’s manager. This sort of claim can become exceedingly costly in fact, unless you obtain the correct insurance. Find the best Public Liability Insurance quote online with Insured Risks.

If Outlook Express is slowing down or getting buggy, it may be getting too big for your computer’s resources, even if you delete every item from every folder and compact your folders regularly.

There’s one more thing you can do to shrink it back toward it’s original size.

First, note those folders that you have mail saved in, such as the Sent Items folder, where you may want to keep stored messages. Now, delete messages from every folder where you don’t plan to save any messages.

Now, under Windows XP, for Outlook Express 6, navigate to: C:\Documents and Settings\David\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{F873E073-A50F-40A2-B71B-A6964213C7D4}\Microsoft\ Outlook Express.

You can do this by opening your C drive, then the Documents and Settings folder and each consecutive folder within the folder after that as described in the path. Assuming your name isn’t David, that folder name will be different for you.

In the Outlook Express folder you will find .DBX files. These files store the e-mails for each of these folders. These files will still be of some size even though you have deleted e-mails. This is one thing that can slow the performance of Outlook Express.

You can safely delete every .DBX file where you do not currently have e-mail stored that you want to keep. Outlook Express will automatically recreate them when you reopen it.

In my case, I want to keep only the Sent Items file. I highlight and delete the others. You will want to have Outlook Express closed when you do this. You may get a message stating you can’t delete certain files. If so, delete the ones you are familiar with like Inbox, Outboox, etc.

Make sure to open Outlook Express and go to File, Folder and select Compact All Folders when you are done.

Outdoor security systems are of particular importance at outdoor sporting events such as baseball games, soccer fields as well as schools, airports, companies and homes. Here are some new developments in outdoor security technology so you can relax and enjoy the game in safety.

Deterrent Properties – Outdoor Security

Outdoor security relies on the deterrent properties of the fence or other outdoor security apparatus to detect and block entry of unauthorized people, vehicles and animals, etc. Today, the issue of outdoor security is of major importance to everyone whether we like it or not and the outdoor security is a serious and lucrative business.

Complete Perimeter Security – Outdoor Security

Among the latest developments in outdoor security is a line of taut wire perimeter intrusion detection systems. The unique component in this outdoor security system is a fence combined with a sophisticated intrusion detection system. If someone or something tries to enter the restricted outdoor security zone, the system will sound the alarm at the outdoor security system headquarters

Analog Sensors – Outdoor Security

While the technical aspects are secret, outdoor security systems based on self-balancing analog sensors are used extensively to monitor fences worldwide. An attempt to invade the outdoor security safe area is recorded on the analog sensors and analyzed before sounding the alarm. These outdoor security systems are based on highly sensitive analog sensors for detecting possible intrusions along with a very low false alarm rate. There is so much at stake in outdoor security for airports, stadiums and public events – and the first and best line of defense is the outdoor security provided by these analog sensors.

False Alarms – Outdoor Security

If outdoor security was not such a serious issue, false alarms would be quite humorous such rain, snow, hail, shifting soil, and the odd fox looking for a hen. The accepted rate for outdoor security false alarms is about one alarm per kilometer of fence in a three month period. There are also outdoor security systems based on this technology for home owners. Look out your window at the shifting weather, vehicles and people zipping by your house. Are you safe? For peace of mind, check out cost effective outdoor security systems to protect you and your loved ones.

Magal Group of Companies is the leading manufacturer in the field of outdoor outdoor security”>solutions. For more information on outdoor security”>technology, visit Magal Systems

At a glance, Robosapien looks great versus the old school box on wheels with clear dome head. ‘Ooh,’ you say, looks kinda like a muscled storm trooper and the fart button now that’s a hoot. We nod in polite agreement, but behind your back, we snicker at your total lack of appreciation of the advanced robotic theory involved.

Robosapien is a modern day turning point in the evolution of robotics and is the first-ever robot based on the science of applied biomorphic robotics. (That’s what you should have been telling friends and family all this time rather than pointing out amusing cat-chasing ability.) Biomorphic robotics stems from Mark Tilden’s innovative new concepts in BEAM technology.

A New Philosophy for Robot Kind BEAM is an acronym for Biology, Electronics, Aesthetics and Mechanics. Dr. Mark W. Tilden founded this relatively new branch of robotic sciences in 1989, based on the premise that behavioral-rich robots need not be the wickedly complex projects reserved only for well-funded labs and cartoon villains.

Put another way, traditional approaches to creating robots have started with creating a sophisticated brain to maneuver the mechanics of the body. Though not discounting the incredible engineering feats of robots built this way, most notably the Sony Qrio and Honda Asimo, Mark Tilden strongly contends that this is the wrong approach to take.

It’s like trying to emulate a human when modern technology and research can’t realistically copy a bug from your garden. “[It's] an evolutionary dead end,” says Tilden. BEAM robotics is about taking the bottom-up approach, to start from mastering the simple bug and moving up from there.

Rather than attempt to create a centralized robo-brain to process every variable input and spit out a decision (much, much harder than you may think), why not use a system known as “subsumption architecture.” Subsumption architecture is a clever technique where the actions of a robot are managed in layers, each layer controlling one facet of the robot’s operation.

For example, a low-level layer could be ‘Walk Forward,’ which the robot will happily do until it bumps into something. At this point, the slightly higher level ‘Lift Leg Higher’ kicks in, overriding the ‘Walk Forward’ layer until the robot successfully climbs over the obstacle, at which point ‘Lift Leg Higher’ stops, and the low-level ‘Walk Forward’ takes over again. *

Egocentric Bugs

So Tilden began building robot bugs on this principle, and more selfish creatures they could not have been.

Why’s that? Well Tilden decided that Asimov’s famous Three Laws of Robotics: 1. No hurt human. 2. Listen to human unless told ‘Do hurt human’. 3. Try to live with that. were antiquated notions that left no room for a good practical joke at parties.

So one dark and stormy night he penned Tilden’s Three Laws of Robotics: 1. A robot must protect its existence at all costs. 2. A robot must obtain and maintain access to a power source. 3. A robot must continually search for better power sources. informally known as*: 1. Protect thy butt. 2. Feed thy butt. 3. Move thy butt to better real estate. 1. He justified this robotic declaration of self-interest as the only way robots can start evolving the way humans may have came from guppies looking for a good time by leaving the ocean.

>From Bugs to Sapiens

Needing to find a lighter-minded group of people from his government and NASA days, Tilden decided to go and join a toy company. Who better than one audacious enough to self proclaim themselves, Wow Wee! It was a great match, and they gleefully began working on toy dinosaurs and bugs based on Tilden’s now renowned expertise.

Then came the master project that one could fairly say would change the landscape of robotics altogether. FartDude, later named Robosapien after initial market testing, was to be the culmination of Tilden’s work, finally bringing to bear a humanoid (sapien-like, if you will) robot capable of an impressive list of moves and rude sounds.

In Robosapien, you see the basics of BEAM philosophy and technological research. It follows the B as a biomorphic rendition of humans, E for the fact you can’t throw it in a bathtub, A because it’s stylin the latest magazine covers, and one heck of a lot of M going into the robo dancing capability.

That’s Mr. Sapien

Like no robot ever before, the Robosapien is affordable to the unwashed masses. The Robosapien is a crowning accomplishment when it comes to mobility, power consumption, programmability, and maybe most importantly: hackability.

Each arm has full 360 motion ability allowed by the, ahem, biomorphic shoulder joints and flexible elbows. Ending in three articulated fingers, Robosapien is capable of picking up, gripping, and throwing objects. The genuine full walking motion (most robots don’t genuinely walk outside a lab) is made possible design of the large feet and well placed sensors.

And do you know how much power it usually takes to run a robot Fuggedabowdit. Regular robots are dishonorable little battery-eaters always hungry for more, more, more! And who’s going to pay for these batteries, hmmm’ Well Robosapien brings no shame to itself when consuming power, essentially due to the astounding mechanical physics. It runs a full 6 to 10 hours on just one set of batteries. In fact, if you move Robosapien’s arm you’ll actually generate power for it! Hey man, that’s shrewd.

For those of you who want a robot that will fetch you a frosty one from the kitchen, you lazy bums will just have to wait until later versions. But you can program your Robosapien to do some pretty cools things in the meantime, like wander around taking swings at things, guarding your bedroom while you sleep, and a hilarious game of ‘pull my finger’. Try teaching your dog that trick smart guy.

So what’s so hot about the hackability, and is that even a word you ask? You’ve got some nerve. Tilden went through some serious, serious effort to be sure that robot enthusiasts could take apart the robot, as he would have done as a child, and tinker with modifications. Everything’s color-coded in there to make things easy for those of us without PhDs, and by all accounts, there’s plenty of additional room and power to accommodate whatever Frankenstein thing you can think up. There are entire books written on the subject should you wish to learn, so go forth and hack away. If it’s a good one, send it in and we’ll publish for all too either mock or applaud.

And Another Thing

So the next time you look at your Robosapien give a respectful nod to the world’s first-ever robot based on the science of applied biomorphic robotics. Then go chase a cat with it.

* Graciously lifted from Dr. Tilden’s excellent ‘Junkbots, Bugbots & Bots on Wheels’ book.

X-37 Moves Forward, Now What? Well, here are a few ideas of taking this craft to a whole new level and plateau in American Ingenuity and Innovation. NASA has learned a lot from the X-37 tests and will now turn it over to DARPA, which makes a lot of sense indeed.

http://www.spacetoday.net/Summary/2554

http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/History/HistoricA…ges/X-37_lg.jpg

Should we also look at a device mounted on this craft to ionize the air or atmosphere upon entry? If the craft were be launched from a large Blimp, super blimp it could be dropped and once clearing the blimp point skyward and turn on the thrusters and ionizers to rid the craft of any friction, which would occur in the atmosphere. Very little energy would be needed and getting it to an asteroid, the moon or around the planet for re-entry would be extremely efficient. If the X-37 were unmanned it could also serve as a deterrent carrying an explosive payload and be used like a smart munitions all the way to the target ionizing the air along the way through re-entry, in fact there would actually be no re-entry, only an artificial extension of a space tube which it could fly through to it’s target as a single mission detonation ICBM. It could be launched from a balloon near over the equator from a Blimp land base in the Hawaiian islands fly half way around the world and drop in un-invited on a declared enemy of peace and freedom, glide effortlessly to it’s destination at a very high rate of speed, virtually undetected and accurate to a square foot. Something of that ability would certainly serve the political will of the free world very nicely, wouldn’t it? The costs per unit would be quite small once designed and built in large numbers.

The X-37 could also make a nice re-entry vehicle which could ionize the air on it’s re-entry by using a high beam of energy and then slowly decreasing the energy for a fast to slow decent using the force of friction of increased molecules of the atmosphere to gradually slow the craft at a pre-designed rate. Less wear and tear on the craft would occur and stability and control could come from parts of the craft not fully in the slip-stream tube of the created extension of space from the ionizing atmosphere device which would be located forward the CG and facing towards the intended direction of flight. Flight control guidance airfoils could extend into an area out side the tube of created space to prevent the craft from spinning within the tube and yawing or losing control. Special landing areas could be also created for such a method of flight so that ionization against the relative wind within the crafts flight path could slow the aircraft to a near stop, thus allow it to hover in artificial space for landing. No need to flair or to worry about a rough landing. The air cushion of non-ionized air would slow it down and the space and waves generated by the ionization would put the craft into a simulated antigravity state for the time it took to land the craft. All this could be done in an automated fashion.

Such a system would allow more payload, eliminate the need for landing gear systems, save space on the craft or commercialized larger versions for space tourism later on. Less weight means more payload, more systems. Such a craft could have on board tele-robotic units to fix the International Space Station or Hubble Telescope, to Mine Asteroids or drill below the surface of the moon for samples. Such a unit could be used to intercept incoming Asteroids on collision course with Earth carrying enough payload for gravity manipulation devices, laser cutters, explosives or attach itself and use it’s self propulsion to move the small body off it’s current trajectory.

NASA was smart to allow DARPA to have this technology for needs to secure our nation and become part of the missile defense system, strategic surgical strikes against adversaries and defending Mother Earth from catastrophic demise of a large Asteroid direct hit which would certainly cause death and destruction and climatic change which would render the current global warming shift totally insignificant.

If we look at the X-37 as a mini scale of 1/24 the size of a full version ship, you can see the benefits of having such a craft to carry people to the moon in the future for visits, scientific expeditions, visits to Mars, orbiting of Venus, Tourists to the Lunar Surface or sight seeing trip. By adding the benefits of ionization of the atmosphere we reduce the problems of heat friction which caused the last Space Shuttle break up, reduce surface wear and tear and have a truly safe and economical space craft.

“Lance Winslow” – Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

When the mind was fidgety, like a monkey

When you felt restless, it helped to understand drives. The mind perceived, recognized and interpreted. It set goals and acted. Those five faculties were managed by sovereign intelligences. Out of these, it was the fourth intelligence, which set goals, by translating feelings into drives. A feeling of fear dictated an escape drive, whose purpose was to achieve safety. That demanded instant responses, varying across species. A deer bounded away. A bird took flight. A fish swam off. While the activities of running, flying and swimming differed, it was the the drive, which achieved the objective of escaping. Drives often made you restless.

Intuition managed drives

Drives have been described in the book, The Intuitive Algorithm. Intuition, a pattern recognition algorithm, enabled the mind to respond, from input to output, within just 20 milliseconds. The incredible speed of this process depended on massive combinatorial memories in nerve cells and this elimination algorithm. These vast memories enabled nerve cells to remember and trigger drive sequences, with infinite contextual finesse. Drives enabled birds to build nests, selecting secure locations and suitable materials. The wracking sobs of sorrow, or the relaxing movements of a belly laugh were both drives responding to emotions. Such drives were the inherited responses of nerve channels to varying feelings and emotions.

Search components of drives

Not all drives produced motor outputs. To achieve their objectives, drives also demanded an intelligent evaluation of the environment. If the objective was to escape, that goal was hardly possible by heading into the predator. Increasing the distance from danger demanded evaluation of many escape routes. That goal could even be achieved by slipping into a safe sanctuary, inaccessible to the predator. Like the underside of a rock.. Drives involved a search of multiple contexts to discover the right answer. When a person sat down to write a shopping list, drives evaluated the stock in the larder, the likely menus, the stock of toiletries, and cleaning needs. Drives delivered item lists to the working memory, to be jotted down. By contextually searching the mind, drives played a valuable, creative role.

The “Aha” experience of drives

Such drives, searching across varied contexts, were not limited to humans. Konrad Lorenz described a chimpanzee in a room which contained a banana suspended from the ceiling just out of reach, and a box elsewhere in the room. “The matter gave him no peace, and he returned to it again. Then, suddenly – and there is no other way to describe it – his previously gloomy face ‘lit up’. His eyes now moved from the banana to the empty space beneath it on the ground, from this to the box, then back to the space, and from there to the banana. The next moment he gave a cry of joy, and somersaulted over to the box in sheer high spirits. Completely assured of his success, he pushed the box below the banana. No man watching him could doubt the existence of a genuine ‘Aha’ experience in anthropoid apes”. Even monkeys inherited creative drives. And restlessness.

The burden of responsibility

The need for a solution had given the animal “no peace.” This dilemma was not limited to animals or just ordinary people. It was a problem at the highest levels of professional life. Mathen had retired as director of a major medical college and hospital, where he had gracefully managed the myriad problems faced by the institution. He mentioned that, when he rose from bed the morning after retirement, he felt as if a heavy burden had been lifted off his shoulders. His subconscious drives, seeking solutions to a barrage of issues, had become inhibited. He felt unburdened. A multitude of such drives operated in your mind. Some of those could discover no solutions. Which caused restlessness. Understanding those drives and acting to manage them could be a step to peace of mind.

Many conflicting goals

Life was a creative process, facing a train of baffling problems. The options were to fight, compromise, or retreat. Each context triggered distinct emotions. Anger, friendship, or fear triggered competing drives. Intuition provided a narrow focus to each drive, by eliminating concerns that did not fit its own feeling. For the drive supported by anger, amicable memories were eliminated. Each drive held a partisan view. As evidence built up, the emotional strengths of the drives varied. Opposing emotions competed for control. Intuition acted in the limbic system to establish the most powerful emotion as the current feeling. The current feeling triggered its own drive. Competing drives, which opposed the feeling were inhibited and became unavailable to consciousness.

Clashing drives

You were conscious of the dominant drive. But, other divergent drives continued as subconscious search processes. Many sought to achieve opposing objectives. More often than not, these furtive emotions perturbed you. For some, this process created massive internal conflicts. How could the conflicting viewpoints of the mind be integrated? How could a multitude of clashing drives be focused on the problems of coping with life in a harsh and unforgiving world? Across the ages, many solutions were offered to focus the mind and still conflicts. Over time, meditation, chanting and breathing routines were found to be beneficial. But, that treated the symptom, not the problem. The long term solution was to broaden the narrow focus of the competing drives. An integrated approach to life would empower consciousness.

Which was the real you?

But, where was consciousness? Which was the real you? Nature had a mechanism, which isolated the truth. When an animal sensed danger, it sniffed the air to investigate. It was a process which generally stilled neural activity. Survival, in a perilous world, demanded a responsive approach, free of distorted views. An inquiring mind was the most open. And, it was not as if an investigation needed to be about life threatening concerns. Even when you wrote a shopping list, that very inquiry stilled background thoughts. In the end, that curious personality was the true you. The superior consciousness. The most powerful intelligence in nature. That questioning drive was devoid of emotions. Open to recognize the new. All other drives had fractional views. Views, which were distorted, or bending to the whims and fancies of anger and fear, or love and compassion.

The spreadsheet list

For worrying issues, you did not need costly counseling. You could begin you own investigation. Just an exercise on a spread sheet assisted this process. Just as in a shopping list, a search process was set in motion. This routine began by listing, line by line, any aspect of a vexing problem, as it came to mind. A short line would be entered, in a single cell of the spread sheet. Like a shopping list. It could just begin with, say, “Downsizing” and go on down. Many conflicting emotions surged in the background. Each line would be a thought, which could point to pages of reports, or be just a hunch. It represented a particular feeling. The curiosity drive was powerful. It would bring in differing viewpoints. Each viewpoint was noted down. These views would arrive in conspicuous sequence.

Emptied mind

When you noted them down, you brought them into consciousness – into the view of isolated and competing drives. The more outraged drives, including four letter references to corporate stupidity, became conscious of opposing viewpoints. Raging emotions could have eliminated those muffled, crucial insights. The average issue would fill about 60 or more cells. All your views about those uneasy rumours in the office. It was a process which emptied your mind concerning the subject. By the time the list was over, the mind would have thrown up many rival positions. Opposing viewpoints usually brought the needed balance.

Organized thoughts

Once the list was over, a label was entered for each thought in an adjacent cell on the spreadsheet. From a calmer perspective, labelling an entry became easier. The slimming down of the corporation was not the end of the world. There could be promotional opportunities. Even possible career improvements. Solutions were bound to emerge. So an entry in a cell could be labelled as an “opportunity.” Each such label would fit several more entries. Gently, the picture cleared. Subsurface drives which triggered anxieties came out into the open. Things at the back of the mind, which went thud, in the dark. The process ended with sixty thoughts in a dozen labeled categories. A “sort” of the labels column would arrange similar ones together, in alphabetic order. Listing similarly labeled ideas together would bring clarity. They became groups of consistent, allied thoughts.

Creativity from a stilled mind

Isolated drives came out into the open. A dispassionate consciousness viewed the tumult and made sense. Unlikely worries seen together distilled reality. Purged anxieties. The less likely outcomes could be ignored. The inevitable ones had to be accepted. That left you with the actions you could take. Invariably, the things you could do never took all that much time. The rest of the stuff just climbed off your chest. Acted on, ignored, or accepted. Another threatening issue would have been acknowledged, accepted and foreseen. Over the years many such concerns raised their heads. Each time, the spreadsheet evaluation balanced the mind and stilled its hidden anxieties. When major concerns in life were sorted out, the creative forces of the mind converged. Anger and fear, love and altruism cooperated to search for solutions which met all the concerns of the mind. An integrated mind was the most creative force in the world.

About the Author

Abraham Thomas is the author of The Intuitive Algorithm, a book, which suggests that intuition is a pattern recognition algorithm. The ebook version is available at www.intuition.co.in. The book may be purchased only in India. The website, provides a free movie and a walk through to explain the ideas.

Getting and carrying off designer skirts is not vey easy. On the other hand, thanks to good value ready made designer clothes and increasing disposable incomes, most of us shopaholics will probably afford to acquire a gorgeous piece of outstanding high fashion clothing every now and then. Nonetheless, there are also certain issues associated with trendy designer clothes that are not there with your normal high fashion clothing, with the very most top ones being the clothing design and the price of such trousers.

Designer skirts costs noticeably more than even the leading brands available in the market; and the reason why designer clothing cost so much is because trendy designer clothes not only offer you stunning quality and tremendous styles, but because they are exclusive. Even budget ranges in designer clothing carry only limited editions, so there are decidedly low chances that you will observe your neighbor wearing the same fantastic top that folk recently bought.

To select the choicest kind of designer clothing for yourself, pay attention to a number of things. If women are not a regular high fashion clothing buyer, then chances are that low cost is a clincher with you. In such a case, it is even more vital that you select unbelievable designer t-shirts that might well in fact give you back your money’s worth. Find the very latest Marc Jacobs clothes at Matches.

To do this, the first rule to do is to find super clothing that compliments your body shape and body size. If fashionistas do not do this, then even the very best designs might often end up making folk look fat. Follow the basic rules of not acquiring baggy shirts that will make you look chubby or stumpy and not acquiring stripy patterns and astonishingly dark colours if you are remarkably slim etcetera to buy t-shirts that match your physique, colouring and facial features.

The other fundamental thing to think about is if you want your awesome designer clothes to last you are to buy pieces or designs that are timeless in nature like black jeans.

(The following was written in 1993.)

Recently, when a visiting friend wanted to rent it, I saw “Schindler’s List” again. I can report that a second viewing of Ralph Fiennes’ portrayal of the concentration camp commandant Amon Goeth yields even more layers and subtleties. But Fiennes notwithstanding, I have to say that, for me, watching “Schindler’s List” has now twice been a vexing experience.

What irritates me about “Schindler’s List” is that it never gets beyond lamenting man’s inhumanity to man and celebrating the triumph of the human spirit, etc., when it could have thrown at least a quick light on something of consequence that apparently still baffles a lot of peoplewhat the Nazis were actually about.

Normally the absence of serious probing into the psychodynamics of egregious human behavior would no more disappoint me in a Steven Spielberg filmeven one about the Holocaustthan it did in a episode of “Hogan’s Heroes.” Spielberg is an enormously gifted filmmaker, but plumbing the nastier depths isn’t something he does and you don’t go to his movies looking for that. (On the contrary, you go in the hope of retrieving a prepubescent innocence.) So I’d have no cause to make an issue of the film’s limitations in this regard were it not for the fact that Spielberg comes maddeningly close to giving his audience a glimpse of where the Nazi’s were coming from. (You could say, in fact, that he gets to within just an inch or so of accomplishing this.)

I’m thinking of the scenes in which Goeth shoots two prisoners from his balcony and then returns to his apartment and urinates.

In this sequence, Spielberg is demonstrating that the most monstrous deeds issue from men just like the rest of us, and he makes this point very nicely. The trouble is that everyone’s known as much since the Eichmann trial. To keep this statement AND illuminate what it is that turns the ordinary man into a homicidal maniac, all Spielberg needed to do was have Goeth, in place of urinating, sit down and move his bowels.

I’m serious. It’s shit, after all, that personifies the hideous fate of decay and dissolution that nature has devised for everything corporeal. Shit approximatesand serves daily to
anticipatethe condition our bodies themselves will wind up in. And it’s the problem of which shit is emblematic, the mother of all problems, the problem of death, that the “Final Solution” was, of course, addressing.

Let’s, just for a minute, try to acknowledge something that ought to be common wisdomcertainly after the work of Ernest Becker. What makes the world go around is, purely and simply, the fact of death. The real, if usually unconscious, purpose of virtually all human behavior is to mitigate the terror and panic the anticipation of death induces; to, at the very least, reduce the trepidation that derives from the very terms of existence to a manageable degree of fear.

When, for a relatively straightforward and transparent example, we invent the prospect of an afterlife and then adhere to rules of conduct we’ve decided will assure us of admission, we are handing ourselves a comforting shot at surviving death. But another of the myriad ways we’ve concocted or seized upon to make living with an intolerable given possible is to pursue and amass financial wealth beyond the requirements of our organismic well-being. The god-like trappings great sums of money buys enable us to feel superior not just to the common man but, more importantly, to the common fate. Many of the “faults” or “neuroses” we develop are also designed to cushion us against the specter of death. Procrastination, for instance, helps us to fashion the illusion that we are suspending time.

And then there’s mass murder.

Blowing away a lot of people is an especially effective death-dread remedy. When guilt and ambivalence are removed from the actwhen the act can be rationalized as serving a righteous or noble cause, like, say, the extirpation of an inferior or evil race that’s corrupting a divine planit’s even better than especially effective. Mussolini’s son, returning to Italy in a state of euphoria after bombing the Ethiopians, and, in an infamous remark, describing the carnage he’d wrought as “beautiful,” was only being honest, candidly acknowledging the ultimate high that murder can afford.

“High,” meaning of course, ABOVE the body.

When we devote ourselves to the preservation of a rain forest, we are performing a service for nature that might, come Judgment Day, earn us a special dispensation. When we bulldoze a rainforest we are getting nature out of our face. But when we are killing, when we are exercising destructive force of a supreme magnitude, and manifesting a blunt indifference to the notion of the sanctity of life, to the unfinished business of our victims, and to the grief of those who loved them, we become what it truly is to be “one” with nature. And the reward is extraordinary. Claiming nature’s power and authority for ourselves, merging with the source of death, we stop feeling vulnerable to nature, we achieve a sense of immunity to its victimization of us, a sense of immunity that, in turn, relieves us of the burden the fragility of our bodies inflicts on us. In the period of killing we get what we most need and want, we get to experience ourselves as indestructible.

Murder kills death.

I’ve conceded that it would have been off Spielberg’s spectrum to make even an oblique or passing reference to a reality so repugnant. But I can still wish he’d been capable of taking his opportunity to toss a wrench into the mindless reflex of hand-wringing astonishment and incredulity that is our rote response to atrocities. The truth of the matter isn’t elusive. We make it so because it sits in shit. A certain percentage of humanity, unable to avail itself of the less malignant death-denial techniques, or finding them insufficient, or seeing through them, will always be willing to become what Elie Wiesel termed “not human”; will, in fact, have no recourse but to violate the social contract and enter madness in order to achieve respite from the inhuman reality of living under a death sentence.

If anything should astonish us it’s that this percentage isn’t much higher.

About the Author

Former contributor to the Village Voice and Rolling Stone. Coauthor and coeditor, respectively, of two collections of essays about rock and jazz in the ’60s: “Music & Politics” and “Giants of Black Music.”