Faith and Fear Encounters

To me in simple terms - Faith; is the confidence in something, while Fear; is to have anxiety on something we are uncertain of. Faith is the believe we have for the belief and Fear is an emotion state we feel, that everyone experiences everyday in this realistic world. The Irony is they always work together in a rather inversely proportional way, i.e. when one is higher, the other is low.

When you strongly believe in achieving something; your faith in it builds up. You gain more confidence and any obstacle coming your way will be seen as a challenge other than fear. These tests can be harder than you can imagine, but they are necessary in order for you to learn, not giving up, and each of them will only bring you closer to the realisation of that something you are trying to achieve. One positive emotion, another positive emotion on, can only make you feel happier. Your life becomes generous as you are trying to pursue what you call your destiny*, omens will guide you which makes you cherish every moment of it. And that's the meaning of your existence, living your dream, for the things you want in life.

However, you develop fear on something you feel uncertain or what we call being afraid of, not within your content zone, of which you lack faith - the confidence and any obstacle coming your way will only deepen this fear and lead yourself to failures. One negative emotion, another negative emotion on can only make you feel sad and disappointed, with no meaning to continue. Your life becomes dull and meaningless and you belong nowhere, nonexistent. In spite of all this, it can all begin to change if you try to trust the unbelievable and remove it's uncertainty by taking risks. You can only overcome your fear by passing through the fear itself. Isn't that's why your father throw you in the pool so you can overcome the fear of downing and start to get stabilised and 'learn' to swim?! The fear of suffering is worse than suffering itself and no one will ever suffer this when it went in search of what it wants. When you want something, the whole universe conspires to help you to realise your dream, which is the power of believing, having faith! Wherever there is fear, only faith can help you to get over.

I had been trying to finish this for a while. I know my fears and had always tried to overcome them with faith. There is this one incident, which serves a good example of faith vs fear;

 

*Destiny or something you believe in can either be good or bad for you.

 

Intellectual vs Intution

One would say heart is the most vital organ in human body while the other would argue that most important organ is the brain as it is not replaceable by transplant or any mechanical devices, however, I would agree to that they both have equal importance within our body depending on how we look at it.

As we all know of their major functions, let's look at something more interesting! Scientific evidence indicates that the heart begins to beat in the unborn fetus before the brain is formed. Neuroscientists have discovered that there are over 40,000 nerve cells (neurons) in the heart alone, indicating that the heart has its own brain. In addition, the heart has an electromagnetic energy field 5,000 times greater than that of the brain and this field can be measured with magnetometers up to 10 feet beyond the physical body, which can provides support for the spiritual teachings to indicate that we humans have energy fields – Aura: to represent soul vibrations or chakras, and may reflect the moods or thoughts of the person it surrounds. You can call me sceptical at this point and stop reading further!

Since the heart's energy field is greater than that of the brain's, let's presumed that energies sensed or released in this energy field are released and perceived through the heart i.e intuition and sent to brain for intellectual interpretation. One's state of balance between the heart and the brain permits the personal condition we have called as peace of mind! This to me indicates the balance between intuition and intellectual. Because this powerful coherence starts in each individual's heart rhythms, the heart can be considered the conduit or vessel through which soulfulness or higher consciousness resides. This condition of heart coherence supports the many teachings that state the human heart is the seat of the soul. As the saying, clear soul clears mind.

Fortunately, developing medical fields such as neurobiology, neurochemistry, and neuropsychology are using technical imaging equipment such as PET (positive emission tomography) and SPECT (single photon emission computed tomography) to identify various regions of the brain, their activities, and have identified the frontal parts of the brain which develops spiritual capacity. Scientific reports are proclaiming that if the frontal lobes of a person's brain are not properly developed at a young age then it can result in a dysfunctional brain with a variety of possible physical, emotional and behaviour related problems. It is also believed that an increased amount of stress, from the chaotic nature of modern living, creates a toxic brain hormone called cortisol. It is deduced that if high cortisol levels are maintained in the brain over an extended period, certain critical brain areas can become totally devoid of neural activity. When neural activity falters, there is a decrease in the ability of the person to control aggression and regulate negative thoughts and feelings. Then, with this knowledge that we human beings were created to live with the constant fuel of love during life, we must educate ourselves and do everything in our power to fulfill our heart's desires in order to function properly. Lastly it is the intellectual knowledge that helps us to identify the intuition, which has to be perfectly balanced!

Tattoo

I've always wanted to get one done but always wondering where and what. It's not about celebrities, rockers or sports icon having them, like if I have one too, I'll feel like them. Neither it is about feeling sexy or rebellious. What is it all about, having some form of art on your body?

First signs of Tattoo comes from 'Otzi – the Ice man' some 3300 BC. His preserved body was found in 1991. Evidently, the tattoo marks were formed by rubbing charcoal on wounds and scientists believed that during those times, tattoo might have been used as a medical treatment to reduce pain. Apart from that, tattoo also has traces on Egyptian women mummified some 2000BC ago. They carried dotted patterns around their belly to certain Gods images. However, the ancient Romans were not very keen on it as they believed in purity of body form. They only used tattoo as brands for criminals and it all changed when they fought with the English, where the Soldiers wore their 'tattoo as badges of honour'. The word 'tattoo' comes from 'tatau' (which means to strike a mark into the body in Tahiti, discovered when the English explorer, Capt. James Cook during his trip in Tahiti around 1769. Various tribes also use tattoo for spiritual rituals from American Natives to natives of New Zealand. It has also been used for identifications amongst the warriors, sailors and soldiers. In Japan, the Yakuza (gangster class), has complex designs which represented an unresolved conflict. They would also have certain images of what they wanted to follow, like a
carp represented strength and perseverance where as lion stood for courage.

A tattoo is created by injecting ink into a person's skin. Using an electrically powered tattoo machine that sounds like a dental drill, the machine moves a solid needle up and down to puncture the skin between 50 and 3,000 times per minute. The needle penetrates the skin by about a millimetre and deposits a drop of insoluble ink into the skin with each puncture. When you look at a person's tattoo, you're seeing the ink through the epidermis (outer skin) as the ink is actually in the dermis, which is the second layer of the skin. The cells of the dermis are far more stable than the cells of the epidermis, so the tattoo's ink will stay in place for a person's entire life.

In today's world, however, Tattoo is accepted more unenthusiastically. The common reasons to get a tattoo could be religious, for loved ones, military service, spiritual or ritual or even just a mistake at the cost of fun. To me, it only shares a common perspective, either to remind or be reminded about oneself, someone or something forever.

Source:

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0412/online_extra.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tattoo

 

How to manage your Boss

Business schools and training courses carefully avoid teaching the things people really want to know. They normally teach explicit knowledge: things like strategy, accounting and marketing. That is useful, but not useful enough. Most people succeed with know-how skills, not know-what skills. In the words of one CEO: I hire most people for their technical skills. I fire most for their interpersonal skills.

The three critical know-how skills are:

1. How do I make things happen?

2. How do I succeed?

3. How do I manage my boss?

There is plenty of help available for managing subordinates, teams or peers. There is very little help available for managing the boss. Given that the boss is the single most important relationship for most people in most organizations, this is a glaring omission.

Learning to manage your boss is not just about career survival: if you can learn to manage your boss, you will have learned many principles that can be applied to managing both teams and networks. In today's flat organizations we have to learn to manage people over whom we have no formal authority. Learning to manage your boss is an ideal way of developing these skills.

Successful management of a boss has four elements:

1. Decoding the rules of survival and success.

2. Building trust: avoiding career limiting moves.

3. Building a career network.

4. Turning moments of truth into moments of magic.

 

1. Decoding the rules

In theory, every boss should sit down with a new team member and have an expectations exchange about performance and process. In theory, accidents are avoidable, crime can be prevented and wars should never happen. Practice rarely lives up to theory. In practice, new team members are pretty much left to figure it out for themselves. Decoding the formula is essential, and there are no universal answers.

The easiest way to find out about the rules of success and survival is to ask anyone except the boss. The boss naively thinks that they do not have any unique or odd style: they simply represent best management practice. To ask the boss about his or her style is to cause both confusion and defensiveness. But a quick chat round the water cooler with other team members or peers will rapidly identify all the foibles of each manager you work with.

To help you think about the possibilities, below is a list of some style trade-offs for bosses:

• big picture vs detail;
  
• positive vs cynical;
  
• task focus vs people focus;
  
• open vs defensive;
  
• controlling vs empowering;
  
• analyzing vs action;
  
• prompt vs tardy;
  
• written vs spoken word;
  
• numbers vs words;
  
• introvert vs extravert;
  
• risk averse vs risk taking; and
  
• outcomes vs process.
  

Some of these are consistent with the psychobabble of different personality tests. But often the things that really upset bosses or please them are much simpler to identify, as above. To put the list into action, create a style compass for your boss and for yourself.

The style compass is a simple way of outlining the characteristics that really make your boss different. You can choose any set of trade offs that you think are important. What counts at this stage is gaining insight about your boss: worry about your own style later.

 

2. Building trust

Identifying the style of your boss is important. But fortunately, there are also a few universal do's and don'ts which apply to all bosses. Starting on the positive side, we identified a few standard expectations of team members in interviews and surveys with over 1,000 bosses. The five most common expectations that bosses had of team members were:

• Adaptability.
  
• Self-confidence.
  
• Proactivity.
  
• Reliability.
  
• Ambition.
  

These are relatively low hurdles for team members to jump over. Many team members manage to fall over them: just by consistently displaying the five characteristics above you will be ahead of the pack. Many team members fall into the traps of excessive analysis, negativity, can't-do, backwards looking and complaining. That is not a recipe for impressing any boss.

"The essence of the relationship between the boss and the team member is built on trust: once trust disappears on either side, then the relationship is effectively over."

Bosses do not like being upstaged and need to feel they are in control. Good surprises are not good, but bad surprises are even worse. Bosses can deal with bad news, provided they hear it in private first and early enough to do something about it. If the first they hear about a problem is on the management grapevine, then be prepared for a very tricky discussion with the boss.

Perhaps the greatest sin of all is disloyalty. The essence of the relationship between the boss and the team member is built on trust: once trust disappears on either side, then the relationship is effectively over. Trust reflects a universal psychological contract between the boss and the team.

The boss has to deliver on two things:

• Tasks: deliver a good mix of meaningful work and provide the support to make it happen.
  
• Career: deliver on career expectations and promises around pay, bonus and promotions.
  

If the boss fails to deliver, team members start to walk. The result of conducting dozens of exit interviews over the years fully supports the adage that people do not leave their organization: they leave their boss.

 

3. Building a career network

Some bosses are tyrants who have a "my way or no way" approach. Working for them is like experiencing serfdom all over again. At the other extreme there are bosses who are so weak that they are never able to promote or support their staff properly. Either way, depending on a single boss is very career limiting. If the boss takes a dislike to you, you are toast. If the boss messes up and leaves the organization, you are toast.

It makes sense to build a career network beyond your own boss. Get to know the people in HR who run the assignment and promotion process. Find and get to know the people who really make the decisions on assignments and promotions: they may well work around the formal HR processes to get the people they really want. Find a powerful sponsor in the organization: someone who is at least two levels above you. They can be useful coaches and can guide you towards the right assignment and the right bosses.

 

4. Moments of truth to moments of magic

Some moments of truth are entirely predictable, and need to be managed well. The three most important moments of truth are:

• Assignments.
  
• Budgets.
  
• Major presentations and meetings.
  

Managing the assignment process has already been covered in building your career network. That leaves budgets and presentations.

Budgets are, in theory, rational processes to allocate resources. In practice, they are deeply political acts in which managers bid for as much resource in return for as little output as possible. Naïve managers accept the "challenging" or "stretching" budget target: they commit themselves to 12 months of stress and overwork followed by a poor bonus. Smarter managers play hardball in the budget process and ensure they get targets that can be beaten: welcome to an easier year, better bonus and faster promotion.

Presentations are set piece events where you see power flow to or from someone. This is not the place for a dissertation on how to make presentations. But there are some simple rules:

• Get help on both substance and style:
  
• Get the style right.
  
• Understand your audience.
  

Other moments of truth are less predictable, but you still need to be ready for them. You never know when you will bump into the CEO or finance director: maybe at a conference, or in a lift or at the canteen. You have a choice: you can stay dumbstruck like most people, or you can say something.

Whatever you do, be relentlessly positive, and focused on solutions and actions. To senior managers who are used to hearing problems all day, you will be like a breath of fresh air.

Managing your boss is not rocket science: it is common sense. That may be why so many people find it difficult. But if you can manage your boss well, you will find your career accelerating. It is an art worth learning.

Above is article I received on email earlier today and have no source details, and this post is not my work. I find this helpful for people like us who work for/with senior management of the company therefore, thought to post it here.

Physics & Technology behind the F1 Car

We all have our favourite sport to watch on the Television, but when you add speed and cars to sports, only F1 attracts most viewers. The Grand Prix (race days) weekends take places across the globe, gathering the celebrities, famous people, CEO's of the sponsors or construction teams, making it a glamorous sporting event. That's what we love to watch on the TV anyway. We see all these happenings and for some of us, we tend to find it a bit difficult when they mention these words: Drag, Downforce, Traction Control, Gear box failure, Front/Rear wings, suspension system failure…etc etc!! I do understand there is a fault somewhere in the car, but why are the so common and what is it actually? I don't drive, and have no clue about car parts even having watched a few Grand Prix seasons. I'll wish I had paid more attention in my Physics class back in school so I'd be able to understand a little more why did my favourite racer has been disqualified and feel guttered. With this, I did a research and found out the following 3 areas to understand this amazing sport a step deeper.

The Aerodynamics

The most important aspect of F1 car design is the Aerodynamics (the way air flows around the moving car). Aerodynamics defines the shape of the car and also the positioning of all the items within it, such as the engine, gearbox and the driver. By controlling the airflow over the car, it maximises the downforce (force applied in a downwards direction as the car moves forwards). A race car traveling at 200 mph can generate downforce that is approximately twice its own weight. Downforce is generated in three specific areas of the car front wing, chassis, and rear wing. The front wing is the first part of the car that comes into contact with air mass. It affects the airflow down the full length of the car and tiny changes can have huge effects on the overall performance. Front wing is designed to produce downforce and guide the air as it moves toward the body and rear of the car. The chassis is designed to produce maximum downforce, while at the same time minimizing drag (resistance force as a car moves forwards). Downforce produced allows maximum speed through the corners. To accomplish this, the top of the car is designed to slice through the air to ensure the smoothest exit for the air. The rear wing helps glue the rear wheels to the track and is configured based on type of circuit the race is on. It's objective is to achieve the best downforce and less drag. In conclusion, the more downforce the car generates and the faster it will be with minimum drag.

The Mechanism & Technology

They say F1 engine is a miracle of modern engineering or the most stressed piece of machinery on the planet. Since 2006, the regulations have required the use of 2.4 litre V8 engines. Revving to 19,000 RPM (unit used to measure Torque - the turning or twisting force of an engine, torque is generally used as a measure of an engine's flexibility), F1 engine will consume a phenomenal 650 litres of air every second, with race fuel consumption typically around the 75l/100 km mark. Revving at such massive speeds equates to an accelerative force on the pistons of nearly 9000 times gravity. It demands to be light, compact and with its mass in as low a position as possible, to help reduce the car's centre of gravity and to enable the height of rear bodywork to be minimised. In summary, an engine with little torque than power (hp: Horsepower) may only be available over a limited rev range, making it of limited use to the driver. An engine with more torque - even if it has less power - may actually prove quicker on many tracks, as the power is available over a far wider rev range and hence more accessible. Good torque is particularly vital on circuits with a number of mid- to slow-speed turns, where acceleration out of the corners is essential to a good lap time.

The gearboxes (Transmission control) have six or seven gears which change in milliseconds. The gearboxes are automated with drivers selecting gears via paddles fitted behind the steering wheel. The electrically operated gearboxes used are very similar in principle to those of motorbikes, allowing gear changes to be made far faster than with the traditional 'H' gate selector. Despite such high levels of technology, fully automatic transmission systems, and gearbox-related wizardry such as launch control, are illegal - a measure designed to keep costs down and place more emphasis on driver skill. The clutch paddle, which is usually on the steering wheel, is used by the drivers only at the start as part of the automatic starting procedure. It can also be activated to prevent the car stalling if the driver spins. Once the car is in motion, the clutch is operated electronically by the complicated gearbox software. So when the engine stalls during the race, it is the electronic systems failure.

The suspension forms the critical interface between the different elements that work together to produce its performance. Suspension controls the power of the engine, the downforce created by the wings and aerodynamic pack and the grip of the tyres, and allows them all to be combined effectively and translated into a fast on-track package. Close control of the suspension is vital, with the wheel travel less than 5cm and a dipping of the car by 1mm is more than ideal under braking or acceleration can disrupt airflow and make the car difficult to handle. The suspension parts are aerodynamically sculpted to reduce drag.

Braking is extremely powerful. High-tech carbon-fibre discs glow red hot at operating temperatures of up to 1,300 degrees Celsius. They can slow a car from 180mph to 50mph in less than two seconds while the Tyres can have a bigger impact on an F1 car's speed than any other single element. They have four grooves to keep cornering speeds under control and are mounted on lightweight aluminium wheel rims.

An F1 fuel tank is a crushable yet bullet-proof structure, housed inside the chassis behind the driver. It is made of Kevlar (strong para-aramid synthetic fiber) to prevent it being punctured in an accident. Size is not governed by rules, and designers have to decide whether to go for a small tank, which may improve ultimate performance, or have a larger one which provides greater tactical freedom in races.

F1 cars are managed by state-of-the art, computer-controlled electronic systems. These control most parts of the car, including the engine, gearbox and driver-aid systems like traction (spinning) control system. Traction control is electronically-controlled to aid the driver that stops the rear wheels spinning, ensuring maximum acceleration. The steering wheel is one of the most complex pieces of equipment on a F1 car. Through it, the driver controls many of the systems of the car. The cockpit is far more than just the place the driver sits and drives. It is also a super-strong survival cell that minimises the chances of injury in accidents and also an operations centre from which the driver can control many of the car's control systems. The chassis must pass a series of extremely tough "crash tests" before it is allowed to race. One of the areas checked most rigorously is the roll-over bar, which protects the driver's head and neck in case the car overturns.

Lastly,

Understeer is where the front end of the car doesn't want to turn into a corner and slides wide as the driver tries to turn in towards the apex and oversteer is when a car's rear end doesn't want to go around a corner and tries to overtake the front end as the driver turns in towards the apex. This often requires opposite-lock to correct, whereby the driver turns the front wheels into the skid.

I've consolidated the above from mainly researching around 3 sites, http://www.mad4f1.com, http://news.bbc.co.uk/
www.f1.com hope it helps!

The Internet

Internet is part of our lifestyles, from communicating with friends and families around the world, shopping, researching, playing games, learning a language, gambling to finding your soul mate. Nowadays, we don't do much of the "traditional things" like going to a library to for doing a specific research or to visit every shop to purchase a particular item you have been looking for. Why would we waste our precious time on such, when we have access to anything at our fingertips from anywhere in the world just with a PC and Internet access. Ever wondered how it works, where it was originated? Or if you have ever thought what would you be doing now, rather how would it be if there was no Internet? Here's a few terms and concepts of what it is and how it works, and the birth…

Definition

The global collection of inter-connected computer networks that all use the TCP/IP protocols and share a common addressing scheme, the Internet Protocol (IP).

One of the greatest things about the Internet is that nobody really owns it. It is a global collection of networks, both big and small. These networks connect together in many different ways to form the single entity that we know as the Internet. In fact, the very name comes from this idea of interconnected networks.

How it works

The Internet only moves computerized information (data packets) from one place to another. That's it! The machines that make up the Internet treat all the information they handle in exactly the same way (with the use of TCP/IP). Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) prepares the data to be sent and received.

The data movement: The data that you are sending does not travel to its destination directly (from sending an email to browsing) but it gets broken up into separate data packets. The Internet Protocol side of TCP/IP labels each packet with the unique Internet address, or IP. Since these packets will travel separate routes (via routers), some arriving sooner than others, the Transmission Control Protocol side of TCP/IP assigns a sequence number to each of packets. These sequence numbers will tell the TCP/IP at its destination how to reassemble the packets once it is received. Amazingly, the complicated process of TCP/IP takes place in a matter of milliseconds.

Browsing: each web site has an address, or Uniform Resource Locator (URL). The URL contains a set of instructions that are read by the browser (IE, Firefox, etc). The document formatting language used to link documents is called HTML (Hypertext Markup Language).

The beginning of the URL contains the protocol. This is usually "http" (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) or "ftp" (File Transfer Protocol). The second section of the URL reveals the domain (the host name, i.e. the server of the website, where the details are stored), directories follow the domain. Lastly is the name of the document. (If no document is named the browser will automatically open any document in the directory named "default" or "index.")

History

Believe it or not, something that dominates our lifestyle now was actually initiated to protect us. The roots of Internet date back to October 1969, when the US Defence Department's ARPAnet first came online. It became apparent that there was a need for a bombproof communications system. A concept was devised to link computers together throughout the country. Since then the Internet has grown from four host computer systems to tens of millions. While this was not the first long-range computer network, it was the first to use packet-switching methods to ensure data integrity, optimized bandwidth utilization, and reliability. However, the TCP/IP protocol was not implemented until January 1983, when the United States' National Science Foundation established their university network. With Tim Berners-Lee's invention of the World Wide Web in 1991, the Internet gained public interest. However, just because nobody owns the Internet, it doesn't mean it is not monitored and maintained in different ways. The Internet Society, a non-profit group established in 1992, oversees the formation of the policies and protocols that define how we use and interact with the Internet, securities and all that jazz.

Therefore, Internet existed since 1970's but the WWW only came by 1990's.

People say "Dog's a Man's bestfriend!" I'll say "Internet is my best friend!"