Thursday, September 6, 2012

The Employee Dishonesty Problem

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Analyzing Security Essentials

Developing a comprehensive security plan requires methodical and deliberate analysis. Starting with a macro understanding of an organization and progressing to micro security tasks, it takes structure to compile and analyze a security plan. The resulting series of recommendations are orchestrated to complement and support each other.
It is a formidable undertaking, because few industry models exist. Few security programs are products of a comprehensive analysis; most are developed on an ad-hoc basis in response to a security incident. In fact, many security operations are designed for investigations after an event occurs, not for prevention.
The object of a security analysis is to identify security exposures in a methodical and thorough manner so that a security program is based on broad analysis and not simply on the last security incident. Analysis ensures that expenditures for security are directed appropriately based on local needs, thus protecting critical resources while accepting the risks stemming from lesser concerns.
The goal, however, is not to develop a foolproof security plan. An underlying concept is that an asset cannot be protected completely, without absorbing extravagant costs and without inhibiting business operations. The goal instead is to make it difficult — but not impossible — for an adversary to breach security. The level of difficulty depends upon the value of the asset and the organization's tolerance for risk.
The analysis process is divided into five phases: asset definition; threat assessment; vulnerability analysis; selection of countermeasures; and implementation. The process is arranged for a deliberate analysis and requires completion of each phase before proceeding to the next.
Asset Definition

Asset definition begins with a broad understanding of the organization's operation, its tasks and functions, and its operating environment. At the beginning of an analysis, interviews are conducted with the organization's management and operating personnel to identify the resources essential for operations. This includes production equipment, operating systems, raw materials, finished product, inventory control and management systems, and the infrastructure of power, water, natural gas and telecommunications. Often, intangible assets are the most significant and are only discernible by examining the organization's operation beyond surface appearances. In effect, this step defines targets for attack.
Each asset may be further subdivided into micro components. An analysis may indicate that a particular asset must be defined in detail because of its criticality. Information technology is an example of the generally defined asset that may be further subdivided into an extensive list of system components, including equipment hardware, operating systems, applications software, database management systems, telecommunications and system documentation.
Both tangible and intangible assets should be categorized as vital (the loss would prove catastrophic); important (the loss would prove seriously disruptive but survivable); or secondary (the loss would be relatively insignificant).
Threat Assessment
A comprehensive security plan requires a broad definition of threats so that a range of exposures is considered. Through the analysis, the focus should narrow to target those threats that are deemed the most applicable.
Assessment begins by compiling data on past security incidents, including incidents at the site, within the company and within the industry. Determine if patterns of criminal behavior exist and define their nature. Review loss records, safety records and legal judgments involving the organization. Consult the company's legal counsel and examine court settlements to identify exposures with an implication for security.
Conduct interviews with management, insurance underwriters and local emergency management authorities to identify applicable threats. Review criminal data and compare crime rates for the nation, state, metropolitan statistical area, and the municipality.
Identify threats unique to the area and to the organization; locations where concentrations of hazardous materials are stored; and transportation avenues commonly used for transport of materials. Consider threats that may not have occurred yet, but are applicable because of the nature of the business and because of political and social issues.
A threat assessment is a qualitative analysis, although some quantitative techniques are used. It is important to emphasize that an assessment is a snapshot in time. As circumstances change, so does the threat environment. Consequently, the assessment must be updated to ensure that the security program is consistent with the needs of the time.
Each threat should be categorized as probable (expect the event to occur); possible (circumstances are conducive for an event); or unlikely (do not anticipate the event to occur). The severity of each issue should also be categorized as catastrophic (a disastrous event); moderate (a survivable event); or insignificant (relatively inconsequential).
Vulnerability Analysis

Security countermeasures represent obstacles in the path of a threat event. The objective is to make the event less likely to occur by making it more difficult for a perpetrator to accomplish the deed. Before introducing obstacles, however, the process for an event must be defined. Vulnerability analysis provides a mechanism for construction of security event scenarios defined in step-by-step detail.
Representatives of the organization with extensive knowledge of its inner workings should construct the scenarios. The team assumes the role of a criminal attacking the organization, which allows key points of vulnerability to be identified. Security plans designed to thwart the informed insider will be equally, if not more, effective when applied to the external criminal. This exercise highlights points of vulnerability and provides a framework for the subsequent phase, the selection of security countermeasures. The vulnerability analysis creates protection sets; meaning that it clearly establishes a focused problem to be resolved through application of security countermeasures. These protection sets are best illustrated by creating a spreadsheet correlating assets and threats and noting which assets are exposed to which specific threats.
Each scenario should have spreadsheet entries focused on plausibility (Is the scenario too far-fetched?); consequences of the event; and the amount of risk the organization is willing to accept.
Selection of Security Countermeasures

Just as a patient may be harmed by improper medication, an organization's security posture may be weakened, if not compromised, by improper application of security countermeasures. The exercise is more art than science, requiring a collaborative effort of management and security staff to arrive at a program consistent with an organization's needs.
Security countermeasures can include electronic security systems, physical barriers, security personnel and policies and procedures.

Electronic security systems encompass access control, detection, surveillance and evidence gathering. Subsystems may include intrusion detection, access control, duress alarms, CCTV, intercoms, radios, public address systems, life safety and telephone systems.
Physical and psychological barriers are applied to prevent access to a target. Physical barriers include vaults, safes, vehicle barriers, fences and gates, bullet-resistant materials, barbed wire, mantraps, vehicle traps, armored cars, mechanical locking systems, vehicle speed bumps and curbing, bomb-resistant structures, lighting, shielding, penetration-resistant panels, and landscaping.

Security personnel perform a variety of duties including the operation of electronic systems, manual control of fixed post duties, and roving patrols. Most guard operations are designed to observe events and report incidents to law enforcement authorities. In some cases, officers are armed and trained to intervene in events.
Policies state management's position and philosophy on business issues and practices. Procedures define the means for implementing the policy. This is a critical part of a security program. It defines programs and processes that are essential for security mechanisms to be effective.

In this phase recommendations are transformed into specifications for people, systems and policies. The objective is to translate the security plan into bidding and purchasing documents and procedures, and organizational programs and processes. Learn more at Millennium Group Access Control.

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Avoid wasting your limited marketing dollars

Avoid wasting your limited marketing dollars on an expensive image-advertising campaign that won't affect short-term results. Instead, let the quality of your response materials and Web site do the job of enhancing your company's image.

Rather than doing less-effective "shotgun" mailings to rented lists, consider repeat mailings targeted at known prospects (such as past inquirers).

Edit your releases with the magazine's editorial focus, style and readers in mind and you'll increase the chance the publication or Web site will publish your information.

Web sites

A few cost-effective changes can dramatically improve your corporate Web site's marketing return on investment. To increase inquiries from your Web site's visitors, Make offers or calls-to-action on every page. Work with other organizations to link your site to their sites, increasing the number of visitors to yours. Register your web site with search engines, selecting keywords carefully so your site will appear in the search results for your intended audience. Post articles and case studies on your site, then register those individual web pages with the search engines.

7.    Determine the "pain" your products and services address

8.    Determine the "pain relief" your company can provide

9.    Determine your company's competitive advantages and how best to articulate them

10. Determine the best companies and contacts to target with your lead generation efforts

Testimonial ads are king

Talk first person with the reader

Use words in your copy like "you" and "your" to focus on the readers' needs rather than boasting about how good "we" and "our" products or services are. For example, the statement "You will get the work done 25% quicker" is much stronger than "Our product is 25% faster than the competition."

The best way to boost direct mail response is to have a strong offer—that is, a targeted offer that will entice prospects to respond.

Successful direct mail marketers understand that campaign success relies on the list and the offer. Determine why you're mailing to people, and then ensure that your list and offer support your objective. Your response rate will be much higher in terms of "qualified" inquiries.

If you need additional demographic information about the contacts' or companies' industry, size, etc. for your direct marketing solutions, check with some of the business database companies like Dunn & Bradstreet ( or ( Or contact the publishers of the trade magazines you advertise in. They usually offer database services to their advertisers.

All leads and business cards go into your CRM system ASAP

Think about offers you can make that will entice visitors to identify and qualify themselves. Can you create a free guide for selecting your kinds of products or services? Can you offer a white paper that explains how their kind of operation is successfully using your product or service to solve problems? If so, use it as bait for having your visitors share their names, titles, company names and contact information.

If you have email addresses for your prospects and customers, but they haven't expressed interest in hearing from your company by email, be sure to politely ask their permission before starting a campaign. I recommend that you ask them how they prefer to be contacted. By email? Fax? Snail mail? Telephone?

Print directories are handy, and online directories are always up to date. Most directory publishers are publishing both, frequently offering you exposure in both mediums for the same price. Keep in mind that directories are often where buyers look when they are seeking new suppliers and have immediate needs.

Web site

· The size of organizations your company serves? large? medium? small?

· The geographies you serve? local areas? states? countries? regions of the world?

· Explain why your company is a better choice than the competition?

· Address your prospective customers' needs from their point of view?

· Did you include the more popular keywords and phrases in your

· URLs?

· Page titles?

· Headlines?

· Body copy?

· Text links?

· Are you loading your text before your graphics and Flash animations in the source code of your various web pages?

· Are you giving your graphics file names that include relevant keywords?

Are you including keywords and phrases in <alt> tags for each of your graphics?

· Have you included a site map on your home page, pointing to all of your site's individual pages?

· Does your site map include lots of keywords and phrases in the page links and descriptive copy for each page of your Web site?

Add privacy

· Have you included a link to your Web site in every appropriate online directory you can find?

· Adding new pages to your site that include in-depth content related to the most popular relevant keywords and phrases?

· Consider using pay-per-click ads as a temporary solution while you work to optimize your Web site for organic searching.

First, I believe you should focus on optimizing your website for visitors, helping them move from awareness to consideration to inquiry to purchase, before you worry about search engine optimization (SEO). Learn more at the Team AVS Website

Friday, June 8, 2012

Helpful Safety Tips

• Always be aware of your surroundings, especially at night.

• Wear sneakers or shoes that allow for added mobility.

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Cyber Criminals Are Winning in a Losing Economy

Amid the global downturn in the economy, cybercrminals appear to be winning in the war against law enforcement according to a recently released McAfee report.

"We saw the cybercriminals take advantage of economic messaging very, very quickly," said Dave Marcus, director of security research and communications for McAfee Avert Labs. He said cybercriminals are cashing in on consumer anxiety, particularly around the holidays and noted that as more and more people go online looking for better deals, criminals are preying on their inexperience in order to lure them to bogus sites and old-fashioned "get rich quick" scams.

One scam involves online job seekers responding to ads for "international sales representatives" or "shipping managers" being recruited as "cybermules" to launder the cybercriminal profits. "It's not a 'mule' in the traditional drug sense, where they're carrying drugs across the country or across a border," Marcus said, "but they are ultimately lured into what they think is like an Internet sales marketer or an Internet sales manager position." In reality they are laundering funds, putting it through additional hands, so that law enforcement has a few more obstacles in their path toward finding the thieves themselves.

Unfortunately, Internet users are on their own, he said. As governments begin to focus on internal economic hardships, the fight against cybercrime slips further in funding and support. McAfee predicts that in the fourth quarter of 2008 cybercrime will continue to escalate in severity.

According to CNET, McAfee found that there is a shortage of computer specialists in law enforcement. And those who are specially trained are often hired away to high-salaried jobs at private companies. Of the remaining law enforcement, they're often bound to national borders, said Marcus, with international jurisdictional disputes further slowing online investigations.

The McAfee report said Russia and China remain the largest safe havens for cybercriminals, while Brazil and Moldova have become the fastest-growing countries to be most often blamed for cybercrime. Learn how to protect yourself at

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Targeting the Consumer

So what is the“next big thing?”

Learn more at

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

10 Tips for School Security

Recent tragedies have magnified the threat of school violence in the minds of students, parents, and educators. Unfortunately, the reactionary response is to purchase trendy equipment in an attempt to upgrade security. Before spending valuable school funds, however, it is crucial to take a more thorough approach. In fact, since the primary purpose of schools is to teach, why not make educated decisions? Here are 10 areas to consider in effectively reducing the risk to school security.

1. Management

Schools today are very good at managing "safety" programs. For emergencies, like fire and natural disasters, schools have well-developed plans. These plans include actions to be taken by students and staff. The actions include clearly defined roles and procedures that are both documented in formal written plans and practiced regularly.
Unfortunately, many schools lack this same level of preparation when it comes to the security. The cornerstone of a good security program is a comprehensive security plan. This plan should be a living document detailing current assets, threats, hardware, procedures, etc. Teachers, staff, and administrators should be familiar with the contents and understand their specific roles and responsibilities. Finally, management of the plan should be well-defined. Those in responsibility must be held accountable for its effectiveness.

2. Assets

All security programs are developed for the same purpose: the protection of assets. Not all programs, though, are protecting the same assets. Those developing a security plan must ask and answer the question: "What is the program going to protect?" Assets can take many forms, ranging from people to facilities to information. Assets should be identified and prioritized. When drafting and prioritizing the asset list, it is important to get the input of everyone affected by and involved in the security program.

3. Threats

Just as assets are listed and prioritized, threats to those assets must also be. Threats are defined as the people that the security program must protect against. Additionally, threats can be either internal or external. Examples of school threats include students, staff, disgruntled family members and community offenders.

Once identified, threats must be accurately described. Such a description should include the number of people acting together to commit the act, the behaviors and characteristics of the people, and the degree of the threat. Schools can use many different sources of information to develop threat descriptions. Demographic data can predict threat levels. School incident logs provide historical data and patterns. Police registrations can identify potential community threats. The information from these and other sources should be collected and used to build the threat list.

4. Deterrence

Deterrence is one of the most basic elements of a security program. The goal of the deterrence is to keep a security incident from being attempted. The key to deterrence is high visibility. Signs can draw attention to security features and policies. Effective lighting can eliminate dark areas and shadows that serve as hiding places. Well-marked guards and escorts can make people on the school grounds more difficult and/or less attractive targets. In short, if your school makes aspects of its security program very visible, certain threats will choose to go elsewhere.

5. Detection

Detection is the first of three components of a security system. Delay and response are the other two components, but are dependent on detection occurring first. Successful detection requires two steps. First, a sensor must signal that a security incident has occurred and send an alarm. Second, someone must identify and assess the cause of the alarm. For example, a door sensor will send an alarm when a door is opened.

Assessment may be achieved by an on-site respondent or remotely via CCTV. In some cases, sensing and assessment may be performed by the same element. For example, a staff member may observe a trespasser (sensing) and use a two-way radio to report the incident (assessment).
Security systems are designed to operate in two modes. Generally, the first mode is during daytime when facilities are open, and the second mode is during nighttime when facilities are closed. Even though the security system uses different methods in different modes, the system must maintain a balanced profile.

6. Delay

Delay in a school is not simply about locks and doors, but about the door itself and other surfaces adjacent to the door. Doors include hinges, glazing, and the basic construction. For interior doors, a basic need is to list all of the doors in the school by room number. Next, determine the use for the room. Finally, list room function. Obviously, the computer lab is a more attractive target for theft than the typical classroom. For daytime use, a simple door bolt on the door will allow the teacher to quickly secure the room from the inside to prevent a series of violent acts from progressing unimpeded from room to room.

7. Response

Response is based on a security person arriving at an incident on campus in a timely manner. As a general rule, the first responder must act within two minutes or fewer from the time an alarm is reported. The local law enforcement agency is typically 15 minutes away from responding. Obviously, the campus security has to be ready to respond quickly. Important questions that involve policy, procedures and training include: What are the security persons trained and equipped to do? Do they use physical force to restrain or interrupt altercations? Are they armed and can they use deadly force to protect themselves, students and faculty? Liaison on a regular basis is important so that police know of the current status of facilities, enrollment and incidents.

8. Mitigation

Mitigation involves actions after an incident has occurred or during an incident of long duration, such as a hostage situation. The long duration incident usually makes use of either an improvised or fixed emergency management center. Those in charge must have familiarity with the facility and surrounding area. Current facility maps and floor plans depicting doors, windows, etc. should be on hand. Other important information that should be noted includes stairwells, lighting panels, telephones (including their numbers), fire panels, HVAC controls, gas lines, etc. A simple, "walk through" videotape recording hallways, doors and office information should also be available to provide cognitive orientation. This information should be readily accessible at an alternate location.

9. Briefings and Drills

Regular awareness training, briefings and drills for students, staff and PTL help correct problems before an incident occurs. Security awareness should be as much a part of contemporary school life as are "D.A.R.E" programs. Signage in school hallways should serve as action reminders when strangers, unlocked doors, etc. are found. Prompt notification of trained security personnel will address issues and may deter or prevent a more serious incident. Practicing security drills is as important as practicing fire drills - both are emergencies. Staff and students should know the difference in their roles.

10. Risk Prioritization

Schools are bound by budgets. Funds must, therefore, be wisely used to "balance" security and, thus, risk. Risk is directly proportional to the threat. A school without risk is unobtainable and unaffordable. As risk is balanced across school facilities, it must also be balanced across a district or geographical area. Additionally, it should be taken into account that demographics and situations change regularly.

Risk is reduced not just with gadgets and guards but with a disciplined program of management-deterrence-detection-delay-response-mitigation that is measured, tested and drilled. Funding should be prioritized and allocated so that the individual school or district improves uniformly from poor to fair to good to excellent - just like a remedial program for a student that has "fallen behind."

A thoughtful consideration of the 10 areas described above is foundational in addressing school security. There is no way to overestimate the value of providing children with a safe learning environment. Detecting, correcting and protecting is, indeed, an important assignment. Learn more at


VOC is an early alpha project. If it breaks, you get to keep all the shiny pieces.

VOC is a transpiler that takes Python 3.4 source code, and compile it into a Java class file that can then be executed on a JVM, or run through a DEX tool to run on Android. It does this at the bytecode level, rather than the source code level.

It honors Python 3.4 syntax and conventions, but also provides the ability to reference objects and classes defined in Java code, and implement interfaces defined in Java code.


Ever thought of going on a backpacking trip, be sure to know it exist in various types. Yes! There are indeed various types of backpacking trips.Every of this type of backpacking trips has it own type of challenges and unique experience. Let’s take a quick look at the various types and help you decide on what type of backpacking trip your next journey would be..

For a beginner day hiking is the perfect way to start, day hiking is one of the few ways to start building up your trail skills. But one precaution to take on this trip is to be geared up to take proper care of yourself outdoors overnight even if it is a daylight trip.

As this is not a type of trip to be taken by a beginner. It is a hiking type that involve staying overnight in an hiking destination rather than going home. Even for an experienced backpacker, proper planning has to be made before venturing on the trip. There must be commitment to safety and comfort. If you are just starting to get acclimatized with overnight hiking, base camping is the best for a start. Base campers set up base to return back to, base camping help in preventing the carrying of so many gears at once.

Hiking can be tedious, and there is also a lot of muscular contractions involved in the process. Hiker as often even considered as endurance athletes because of the rigor encountered on the road. So people venture into backpacking to lose weight or as an alternative to hitting the gym. When hiking for this purpose you should ensure regularity.

Thru-hikers are backpackers with a particular goal, they are backpackers that are attempting    to complete an entire trail, end to end, in a 12 month period. Thru-hiking is also called end to   end hiking, and is a backpacking that is associated with longer trails such as the Pacific Crest           Trail, Appalachian Trail, and the Continental Divide Trail. Thru-hiking is very involved and            requires much more planning, especially when it comes to restocking your supplies along the way nearby towns, overcrowded or full on the southern end of the Trail. ATC encourages hikers to consider alternative starting dates and locations to help alleviate the impacts of so many hikers concentrated in certain areas of the Trail.

This is a type of backpacking trip that is done in the night. It can be scary, it is certainly not for everyone to practice, but it is an incredibly great skill to develop.

So the next time you’re going on a hike make sure you identify the type of hike you’re going for and make adequate preparation required for the particular trip.


Queen rocker Brian May is helping scientists raise £160million to build an orbiting space observatory to save the world from asteroid attack.

The boffins have named June 30 as ‘Asteroid Day’ to help raise the cash to build and launch Sentinel.

Supporters other than guitarist May include Martin Rees, the astronomer royal; biologist Richard Dawkins; Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart; Nobel laureate Sir Harold Kroto; British astronaut Helen Sharman; and cosmonaut Alexey Leonov.

Their aim is to highlight the dangers facing Earth and track deadly asteroids that may be lurking in near-Earth space .

They claim a small asteroid , perhaps only a few hundred yards across, hitting Earth would devastate a continent or trigger tsunamis.

June marks the anniversary of the “Tunguska event”, when a small asteroid or comet exploded above Siberia with the force of 1,000 atomic bombs in 1908 - the largest impact event on Earth in recorded history.

“Asteroid impacts are one of the few threats we can quantify,” Lord Rees said.

“Every 10 million years or so, a body a few kilometres across will hit the Earth, causing global catastrophe – there are a few chances in a million that this is how we will die.

"A body that is, say, 300 metres across, if it fell into the Atlantic, would produce huge tsunamis that would devastate much of Europe as well as the east coast of the US."

The Sentinel telescope would be launched on a Falcon 9 Space X rocket and would hover in space relatively close to the sun, looking back out into space and surveying asteroids and meteorites that approach the Earth.

"Sentinel would be fitted with an infra-red telescope as steroids are generally charcoal black and difficult to spot in space,” added Murphy.

“However, an infra-red telescope would allow it to detect asteroids from their heat.”

Lord Rees added: “The cost of an impact would be colossal, which means – if you calculate an insurance premium in the usual way by multiplying probability by consequences, it turns out to be worth spending $1billion a year to reduce asteroid risk.”

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Dreams: Still the Royal Road to the Unconscious

Michael Cornwall, PhD

I believe that is as true now as it ever was.

First, a little more history…

He hadn’t been consciously aware of being deeply afraid of her.

Best of luck on the royal road of dreams!

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  1. Thank you, Michael. I have two dreams from quite a long time ago which I often think about because of their intense emotion and how those emotions may be with me in my waking life in various situations. I will now pay even more special attention. To me, dreams are eternally fascinating and filled with intricate internal wishes and fears and hopes. They are often a secret window into our very souls.

  2. Significant. Thanks for this. For so long, I have not “dreamed” in my sleep. Recently, I have had the most beautiful connections to loved ones during that twilight moment between wakeful consciousness and sleep where there is dialogue, deep connection, energy shared, love said, love and words that must be spoken outloud, emotions seen and spent… I can’t control this beautiful exchange and it’s very real… it just happens. It is always very positive and it’s much like a real visit. It is meditative and I only hope that it continues. I wish your blog were longer.

  3. I forgot to mention in my first comment that after my dear friend, Lee, died suddenly in 1981, when he was only 43. I dreamed about him off and on for over ten years. They were searching dreams in which I would be looking for him and just after I would finally see him, but he would never see me, I would wake up. It was as though I were an outside observer somehow. They were searching but comforting dreams as I always would see him and he would always have his tender smile. The dreams helped me through my grieving so much, and I would look forward to seeing him. Now I am able to look back on that difficult time with sadness but with internal strength. I feel sure that it was being able to talk about him with a mutual friend and the experience of those amazing dreams which lifted me through that sad time.

  4. Brother Michael, I’m so happy to see this lived perspective on the madness of our 2013, “objectified” sense of self. The very sense of self which presumes itself intelligent, while remaining in deep, socially constructed denial about our true nature, IMO.

    Only this morning, half a world away from you, I find myself writing these notes to myself, in my journal, as I continue an inward journey, which began with my “flight” to Thailand, three and half years ago. Please consider;

    “Noticed, projected anger this morning, from the frustration of my life-long “outsider” position and working on my more academic essay. Yet, at the same time being aware of how a frustrating “process” helps me to better articulate my intuitive sense of reality, as it is. I’m struggling with how best to say to myself and others, how our self-deluding, yet consensually accepted “subject – object” orientation of our intelligent mind, adopts the “projected” illusion of objective reality, in service of denial.”

    My intuitive, “day-dream” sense, of how our need to sanctify the mind, reflects our need to control our evolved, innate, nature. Hence, our urge to dominate Mother nature, seems to reflect the evolved mind’s need to dominate those powerful, archetypal forces within, which are the forces of our Cosmic evolution, as a sentient life-form. Please consider an excerpt from a current essay, I’m writing;

    Trying to become a good or better human being sounds like a commendable and high minded thing to do, yet it is an endeavor you cannot ultimately succeed in unless there is a shift in consciousness. This is because it is still part of the same dysfunction, a more subtle and rarefied form of self-enhancement, of desire for more and a strengthening of one’s conceptual identity, one’s self-image. You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you, and allowing that goodness to emerge. But it can only emerge if something fundamental changes in your state of consciousness.”

    Exerts from “A NEW EARTH” by Eckhart Tolle.

    My psychoses over the past three years, have fundamentally changed my state of consciousness. Yet mainstream psychiatry considers all hyper-sensitive’s like me, pathological?

    Please consider excerpts from a dissertation on Psychosis and Spirituality;

    “Similarities between mystical experience and “madness” have been noted since ancient times. Mystics have long been persecuted for their experiences, which to some may look like mental disorder, but for initiates are signposts that they are on the right path. Even today, the ancient practices of many tribal and indigenous peoples would be considered a psychotic disorder by mainstream psychiatrists.

    Psychiatry, in general, makes no distinction between mystical experiences and mental illness, and shows no recognition of the contribution made by the great spiritual teachings into the systemic study of consciousness. Consequently the concepts and practices based on centuries of deep psychological exploration and experimentation are dismissed and the fruits of this practice ignored (Grof and Grof, 1989).

    Peak experiences have been reported by millions of people both males and females of all ages, from diverse social and educational backgrounds with various religious affiliations (Austin, 19980). During his initial research, Maslow (1971) believed that all individuals were capable of peak experiences and even came to the expectation that all participants in his research would report a peak experience. Those who did not, he called non-peakers, not because they could not have this type of experience but because he believed that they somehow suppressed or denied them. Maslow considered “non-peakers” to be rational or mechanistic and therefore regarded their peak experiences as a form of insanity. He believed that the individual who is afraid of losing control would desperately try to stabilize or hold onto their reality and push the peak experience away.

    (In general terms, does this fear of losing control, apply to the consensus reality we all share as a socially constructed, group mind, in our generational need to keep madness, out of sight and out of consensus awareness, so that we can remain in denial? What does the Biblical story of Daniel in the Lion’s Den really refer to, when we think in terms of metaphor & projected internal energies? Both the Lion & the Dragon have long been associated with the fiery energies of the human heart, and this “projection” is seen most recently in the movie Avatar, when Jake Sully, that well know scoun, is foolish enough to try to Master the red dragon of Psychosis, IMO. Yet what benefits flow to the tribe, when the born to be sensitive’s, manage this age-old challenge, to decipher the needs of our Cosmic Soul & our Destiny as sentient species? IMO we are the children of this Universe and its own evolved mechanism (hate that Descartes, term, that limited cause and effect logic, “as if,” we are a machine), of Eternity.)

    Maslow’s (1971) research demonstrated that peak experiences can occur in the middle of everyday events in the most common of surroundings. Maslow was surprised to find many of his undergraduate students having peak experiences which they described in similar language to that used by spiritual leaders in the East and West, thus implying that one does not need to be a mystic to experience a peak state (Hoffman, 1988). In fact Maslow said:

    “The great lesson from the true mystics, from Zen monks, and now also from the humanistic and transpersonal psychologists – that the sacred is in the ordinary, that it is to be found in one’s daily life, in one’s neighbors, friends, and family, in one’s backyard. (Maslow, 1971, p, x)

    According to Maslow (1986), these experiences lie at the core of moments of ecstasy and deep mystical and transcendental experiences such as those explored by William James. (link to “the varieties of religious experience)

    Other models of Peak Experience:

    Maslow’s description of the peak experience is similar to the description given by Rogers (1980) for the “fully-functioning person.” Rogers originally described this as being open to experience, process oriented, caring, non-materialistic, anti-institutional, holding an inner sense of power, somewhat skeptical of science and technology, having a desire for authenticity, wholeness, intimacy and the spiritual. Like Maslow, Rogers was aware that only a minority of the population reached this state and of these, only a few possessed each of the characteristics.

    Maslow also considered the height of the peak experience similar to Cosmic consciousness (Bucke, 1923/1969) and the mystical experience as outlined by James (1902/2007), who identified four characteristics of the mystical experience: 1. Ineffability; the experience defies expression, its quality must be experienced, it cannot be transferred, it is more like a state of feeling rather than intellect. 2. Noetic quality; a state of knowledge providing insights into the depth of truth beyond the grasp of the intellect, illuminations and revelations of significance transcending time and space. 3. Transiency; mystical states cannot be sustained, they are fleeting, rarely lasting up to half an hour at most, once faded they can be somewhat imperfectly reproduced. 4. Passivity; the individual’s will is suspended and one is held by a superior power, various phenomena such as autonomic writing, trance or prophetic speech are experienced and although not often recalled the individual senses their importance.

    Cosmic conflict involving a dramatic clash of opposites-combat between the forces of light and darkness. With archetypal images as primordial patterns which form the basic content of religions, mythologies, legends and fairy tales of all ages. (which has been my intuitive, yet unarticulated understanding for a long time now.)”

    Excerpts from: The Differentiation of Psychosis & Spiritual Emergency by Monika Goretzki. (comments in brackets, mine)

    Sadly, the need to embrace the current group mind, tends to lead transpersonal writer’s into a dichotomy of suggestion, that there is a “clinical” difference between psychosis and Mysticism, which IMO reflects the current limitations of our “cause and effect intelligence. Even the scientists who embrace “systems theory,” which now illuminating the systems growth of our early maturing brain/nervous systems, within the first years of life, acknowledge that they revert to cause and effect language, in everyday dialogue, with family and friends. It does seem though, that we are on the road to the Kingdom of Heaven, the rise and rise of mass education, lifts the perceptual capacity of our younger generations. President Obama’s impromptu remarks about the Trayvon Martin case, reflect this reality, IMO. He noted how, observing his children and their friends, that they were accepting the generational challenge to it better than we did.

    I know you will recognize John’s contribution to this fine dissertation, in the language of our Cosmic struggle, to become Buddha, within this eternal now. The literal translation of Buddha, meaning, AWAKE.

    Best wishes,

  5. An interesting piece Michael, great to see your writings again.

    I’m likely a bit different to other folks and prefer not to remember my dreams. I’d rather they did their work when I’m asleep and I can wake up and get on with stuff. If I wake up in the middle of a dream it tends to keep me back. Tires me a bit.

    Often I wake up first thing with ideas for what to write, either in a blog or Email, in my present role as a mental health activist. It’s as if through the night the script was being written or the idea was taking hold. Like my mind was working out stuff from the day or days before and I wake up clear as to what I should write about. What the focus should be. An unconscious reflection and I’m quite happy for my mind to do this when I’m asleep. Then I can get on with stuff when I’m awake.

    Not sure if this makes sense. I’m more and more of the mind that when we sleep there’s a lot going on in our minds. That we don’t need to be ‘present’ for it to be sorting itself out. I hated being on psychiatric drugs for they took away the reflecting, the imagination, the decision-making and the systems thinking. For me. My episodes of psychoses, after childbirth and at the menopause were quite natural occurrences after times of great body and life changes. It’s the psychiatric treatment that was traumatic.

    It was the same for many of my family who experienced psychosis. Some used to bring it on, as an escape, not using drugs to do so. One of my family members describes it as a very creative experience, they look back fondly and often speak of their psychotic episodes as adventures. Explorations into the other areas of the mind?

    I don’t know why psychiatry fears psychosis. And want to label and stigmatise it. Rather than let it be a thing of itself. A state of mind that can be productive, a journey from one place of being to another. Sometimes necessary in a life of fast paced living.

    Thanks Michael, Chrys

    • This approach sounds similar to mine. I tend not to work on my dreams so much as let them work on me. Sometimes they move me to action or to alter my behaviour. Recently my mind began to spin into a very fast and excitable state. I dreamed that I was careering out of control down a hill in my car and then I realised that I had my foot on the accelerator instead of the brake. I began to deliberately slow myself down in my daily life and was able to find my way back to balance. The other night I dreamed about making a pot in a particular shape, and I am now making that pot in this reality, an interplay and communication between different aspects of consciousness that fascinates me.

  6. Michael,

    A great post.

    When I was a young man, I went through some unspeakable trauma. Fortunately, I was able to connect to a very humble and deeply caring soul. His specialty was dream interpretation.

    There were other things that helped me overcome the trauma. He suggested biofeedback, and introduced it to me. I also had several sessions of cranial osteopathy, but the human relationship with a caring soul who was anxious to hear my dreams moved me through what I thought was the darkest time in my life. It helped me overcome, move beyond – bringing light and hope.

    Glad you’re back with posts!

    Your brother,

    Thanks again, Michael…

    Thanks for getting me thinking about this some.

  9. I remember reading about a culture, I think in the Pacific islands, where the first activity at breakfast in the morning was each person relating what they’d dreamed about the night before, in a very accepting atmosphere of interest. It did not surprise me that the article went on to say that these folks were among the most peaceful cultures on the planet.

    Dreams are fascinating and informative, and it’s disturbing and indicative of where we’re at as a culture that sharing of dreams has dropped out of therapeutic practice. I definitely shared dreams with my very competent therapist as a young man, and if nothing else, they gave me a clear indication of my progress in therapy. I remember one in particular, later in therapy, where I dreamed of meeting a very ugly, stupid, diseased-looking person who looked something like me. I remember seeing him and wanting to turn away, but instead, deciding to greet and embrace this “unacceptable” version of myself. It was a very powerful moment – brought Jung’s “shadow self” right to mind. I knew at that point that my therapy was drawing to a successful close.

    Thanks for reminding us of the power of our dreams. It’s interesting that “dream” is also synonymous for imagining a better future for ourselves.

    —- Steve

    Please consider;

    “The notion of this universe, its heavens, hells, and everything within it, as a great dream dreamed by a single being in which all the dream characters are dreaming too, has in India enchanted and shaped the entire civilization.

    The ultimate dreamer is Vishnu floating on the cosmic Milky Ocean, couched upon the coils of the abyssal serpent Ananta, the meaning of whose name is Unending. In the foreground stand the five Pandava brothers, heroes of the epic Mahabharata, with Draupadi, their wife: allegorically, she is the mind and they are the five senses.

    They are those whom the dream is dreaming. Eyes open, ready and willing to fight, the youths address themselves to this world of light in which we stand regarding them, where objects appear to be distinct from each other, and an Aristotelian logic prevails, and A is not not-A. Behind them a dream-door has opened, however, to an inward, backward dimension where a vision emerges against darkness…” _Joseph Campbell.

    And from a neuroscience perspective, (blasphemy, to the true believers here, apparently?), although I question people’s ability to really grasp the meaning of the words “cognitive dissonance and psychological-blindness,” consider;

    Sleep, Arousal, and Mythmaking in the Brain:

    Shakespeare proposed one possible function of sleep when he suggested that it “knits up the raveled sleeve of care.” Each day our lives cycle through the master routines of sleeping, dreaming, and waking. Although we do not know for sure what the various sleep stages do for us, aside from alleviating tiredness, we do know about the brain mechanisms that generate these states.

    What a strange thing, this dreaming process, that has now been the focus of more scientific inquiry than any other intrinsic mechanism of the brain. In terms of the EEG, it looks like a waking state, but in terms of behavior it looks like flaccid paralysis. When neuronal action potentials are analyzed during the three states of vigilance (sleeping, dreaming, and waking), we generally get a picture of waking activity as accompanied by a great deal of spontaneous neural activity, with only some cells being silent, waiting for the right environmental stimulus to come along.

    Before certain critical experiments were done, it was assumed that the waking state was sustained by the bombardment of the brain by incoming stimuli from the senses and that sleep ensued only when stimulation from environment was sufficiently diminished.

    During REM sleep, most of the brain exhibits slightly more neuronal activity than during waking, with storms of intense activity sweeping through certain areas of the brain. However, many neurons that are most active during waking cease firing completely during REM.”

    Excerpts from, “Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions.” by Jaak Panksepp.

    In a recent moments of day-dreaming inspiration, I’ve written in the Joseph Campbell Mythical Roundtable facebook group, that we are all on a special 12 step program, now containing some 6 billion odd souls, and counting? The Universe perceiving and acting upon itself? Becoming eternal by evolving into a form which acts upon itself, that is.

    And what does such a view have to do with the mental health debate? IMO what is at stake here, is the meaning of being human, in the reality that psychosis, is a right of passage? A subconscious right of passage, as our evolved brain/nervous systems, needs to adopt a mature orientation to reality, as it is. Hence I find myself posting this update on my facebook wall;

    Lift the veil a little more & realize the defensive and dark side of your objective rationality. Real human intelligence is emotional, intuitive, innate and entirely creative, because that’s what mother nature and the cosmos, created you for. Too much of our so-called objective insight, is based on our instinctive need to survive, that’s all. In Silvan Tomkins brilliant work on our innate nature, he notes 9 primary affect-emotions, only 2 of which are considered entirely positive. Interest-Excitement and Enjoyment-Joy, the other seven are devoted to your immediate need to survive the possible dangers of the present moment. Going beyond this innate need of wary self-defense is what happens to all the great mystics, including Buddha, Jesus & Muhammad as they faced the nature of their own reality and transcended an innate sense of FEAR.

    In the response to my comment above, Michael writes of interpretation getting easier with age, and I agree, hence my suggestion to Chrys on another thread, that we are “idolizing” education for the sake of education, above the value of lived wisdom, which only age and experience brings. This “idolization” of our educated priesthood, has IMO, led us into our current global dilemma, and is now forcing us to mature, a little more.

    Yet does this point in human history come by way of chaos, chance and circumstance? And is the rationally oriented cause and effect, objectifying intellect, capable of grasping an “unbelievable” reality, of ALL was meant to be? Right here, right now, because this moment is and always was, Eternal? Such is the trial of the visionary mind and the existential challenge of the born to be hyper-sensitive’s, like you and me. Please consider an excerpt from my journal come memoir, currently under construction;

    Is the Unexamined Life worth Living?
    Is the Hero’s Journey, applicable to an ordinary, individual life? Please consider the Cosmic Mythology of our Evolution;

    An enthusiast of novelist James Joyce, Campbell borrowed the term monomyth from Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. Campbell held that numerous myths from disparate times and regions share fundamental structures and stages, which he summarized in The Hero with a Thousand Faces:

    The Crossing of the First Threshold

    Modern Examples: In Star Wars: A New Hope, Luke enters into the threatening and unpredictable world of the Creature Cantina in Mos Eisley. He then leaves Tatooine for the first time on the Millennium Falcon. In Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Harry defeats the troll, plunging him into a situation where he and his two companions will actively fight the darker powers, rather than simply parrying the blows. In The Lord of the Rings, Sam stops in the middle of a field and says to Frodo “If I take one more step, it’ll be the farthest away from home I’ve ever been.”

    Belly of The Whale:
    The belly of the whale represents the final separation from the hero’s known world and self. By entering this stage, the person shows willingness to undergo a metamorphosis. (recall my use of Kafka’s, The Metamorphosis in Chp 17)

    Classical example: In the story of Dionysus, Hera sends hungry titans to devour the infant Dionysus. The Titans tore apart the child and consumed his flesh. However Dionysus’s heart is saved by Hestia, goddess of the hearth, allowing Dionysus to be reborn as a god. Jonah is swallowed by a great fish in the book of Jonah (Old Testament/Hebrew Bible).

    Modern Examples: In “Star Wars: A New Hope”, the heroes are sucked into the enemy space fortress by a tractor beam. In The Lord of the Rings, Frodo is stabbed by one of the Ringwraiths; he almost dies but his life is saved by Elrond. In Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Harry enters the Forbidden Forest and discovers the presence of Voldemort, who murdered his family and almost murdered him.

    The Road of Trials:

    Classical Example: “In fitting in the theme of tests often occurring in threes, Jesus is tempted by Satan three times in the desert. Jesus passes each of these three temptations, and the narrative moves more firmly to Jesus’ divinity.”

    Modern Examples: In The Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship fight their way through to go through the mines of Moria, Gandalf is lost fighting the Balrog. In Star Wars: A New Hope, Luke rescues the princess from the Death Star, but Obi-wan is killed by Darth Vader. In Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Harry enters the realm of the trapdoor that’s guarded by the three-headed dog and undergoes a series of trials.

    The Meeting With the Goddess:

    Modern Examples: In Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Harry defeats Voldemort/Quirrell because touching Harry burns their flesh. The explanation that comes later is that they can’t tolerate the pure love that Harry’s mother had for him, and which protects him.

    Woman as Temptress:

    Modern Examples: In Star Wars: A New Hope, Han Solo claims his reward money and leaves the rebels to fight alone only to return later to save Luke’s life. In Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Harry is tempted by the Mirror of Erised as a false answer to his desires and needs. In The Lord of the Rings, Frodo attempts to offer the ring to the lovely royal elf Galadriel because he believes in her power, but declines when he sees what it would do to her.”

    From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth

    IMO these age-old legends from all the worlds religions and fairy tales, are as much about our “internal” reality, as the observed “objective” reality of the material world. Hence, following my “intuitive” bliss, as Joseph Campbell suggests, I began a new blog recently;

    “2020: Project Realization. Towards a New Sense of Self & Earth. Re-Defining the Chemistry of Life’s Cosmic Nature.
    A dream. A future day when all humanity will pause to honor our ancestors in acceptance of our species destiny.
    Science continues to discover more about reality, both without & within. Reaching for a Cosmic Self-Realization?”

    But of course, to mainstream “objective” realists, I’m just a crazy psychotic, with “unreal,” cosmic sized day-dreams? And in defense against the predictable “reactions,” rationalized as reason, towards my “reductionist” worldview;

    Please consider a footnote of my own hero’s journey;

    My Personal Journey & need for Redemption:
    Since 2007, my own hero’s journey has been about family redemption. Please consider this personal correspondence with my youngest son;

    Hi Shaun, Thanks for the response, I’m really happy that we are starting to communicate like this, and I do mean it, that my “acting out,” the generational violence when you were young, sends shudders down my spine these days, and makes me feel deeply ashamed. But we all, do this, “acting out,” without consciously knowing how or why? Its been my task, since 2007, to understand this, within myself, and then explain it to others. I wrote to James previously, saying that once I published, to critical acclaim, the family’s attitude will shift, although with little ability to really understand why. The same thing happened when I built the family business, and people’s perception of me changed, even though I had not changed that much. I just brought out more of what is innate, within me, as you did, that night at Jannali, in your HSC drama performance. Its a deep source of regret for me, that both you and James, gave up your acting desires, just as it is that Matthew gave up his artistic desires, and Luke his sporting prowess.

    The two books are 1, about why so-called mental illness, is not a brain disease, and how, after 2007, I set about trying to find the scientific proofs to compliment my intuitive sense, that the medical model, is flawed. As my journey continues, and I manage myself without medications, my ability to understand and communicate that understanding to others, is growing rapidly now. Both, amongst professionals and lay people. The second book, is about our family and the generational nature of emotional coping and how it affects each new generation. In particular, its about the pivotal experience of loss, like the life I sanctioned to be aborted when your mum & I were too young to really understand just how sacred and precious, life is.

    The abortion, came through as a very strong part of the emotions, involved in my first experience of mental illness, and its possible that if we had decided to have that first child, as I wanted too, we would have had five children, 1 girl and 4 boys, just like my Grandmother. Of coarse, no one can be sure, that the first pregnancy was a girl, yet imagine what a difference a girl would have made, on both sides of our family tree? For my own mother, it would have helped to heal a childhood wound, from her abandonment, by her own mother, and for your mother, it would have allowed her and your Nan to improve the generational nature of emotional relationship. My great wish now, is to get a current, academic essay I’m working on right, and then contact an established writer to co-write a book, which will ensure its publication, by a good publishing company.

    The second book, will be about my search for redemption, in the adoption of a Thai daughter, to help bring the generational wound, to a healing completion. Hopefully, this will happen before my mother dies, and we can have the experience I saw with my Grandmother, when you were still a baby. A night in Blacktown, when her great grand children gathered around a curious old fossil, and I saw in her eyes, the meaning of life. She didn’t need money or things, or so-called success, she saw her life’s meaning, right in front of her eyes, and died knowing, just how much she’d contributed to this life, to this family. In the end, its what its all about?

    Best wishes to all,

    David Bates.

  11. To go slightly off topic, Michael wrote, ” in our strange 2013 world, where one out of four women and one out of five of all Americans are taking a prescribed psychiatric medication.” So the American Dream is now Coca Cola, Mcdonalds and Prozac.

    America is now a land ruled by Multi-national marketing depertments.

    The nightmare is complete

  12. Dear Michael,

    Thank you for this engaging essay. The only part of my practice I really miss is the Jungian work with the dreams and the sand tray and such. I built my own sand tray a few years ago, and spent several months collecting adequate numbers of all the needed figures. I had forgotten until today how fulfilling it was to make the sand tray and utilize it in practice.

    Perhaps I feel a bit inspired to revive parts of my practice in a new and evolved way thanks to your essay.

    Best regards,

    Sharon Cretsinger, XLISW
    Kent Empowerment Center, Kent, Ohio


How many Buckets?

This Blog was originally posted by David Maier here
In Couchbase the equivalent of a database is called a bucket. A bucket is basically a data container which is split into 1024 partitions, the so called vBuckets. Each partition is stored as a Couchstore file on disk and the partitioning is also reflected in memory. Each configured replica leads to additional 1024 replica vBuckets. So if you have a bucket with 1 replica configured then this bucket has 1024 active vBuckets and 1024 replica vBuckets. The vBuckets are spread across the cluster nodes. So in a 2 node cluster each node would have 512 active vBuckets. In a n-node cluster each node would by default have nearly 1024/n vBuckets.

An often asked question is ‘How many Buckets should I create?’.
There are multiple aspects to take into account here.
  • Max. possible number of Buckets
  • Logical data separation
  • Load separation
  • Physical data separation
  • Multi-tenancy

Max. possible number of Buckets

Before we start talking about why it might make sense to use multiple buckets, let’s talk about how many buckets are possible in practice per cluster.
As we will see a bucket is not just a logical container but also a physical one. Furthermore some cluster management is happening per bucket. So it would not be a good idea to create hundreds of buckets because it would lead to a management overhead.  The actual max. number is dependent on size, workload and so on. Couchbase is usually recommending a max. number of 10 buckets.

Logical Data Separation

Let’s assume that you have multiple services. Regarding a service oriented approach (and especially micro services) those service would be decoupled by having disjunct responsibilities. An example would be:
  • Session Management Service: Create/validate session tokens for authorization purposes
  • Chat Service: Send/retrieve messages from/to users
The session management service is then indeed used by the chat service but both services have disjunct responsibilities.
A logical data separation would mean that we create 2 buckets in order to make sure that there is a logical separation between sessions and messages. So you can co-locate some service by taking the scalability requirements into account. If these requirements are completely different then it would make sense to open a new cluster.

Load Separation

It’s indeed the case that the workload pattern of the session management service is different from the chat service. Millions of users sending/reading messages would cause a lot of writes and reads whereby the token based authorization would cause mostly reads and a fewer number of writes for the log-ins.
So it would be useful to create the session management bucket with other settings than the messaging one. For a session management use case it makes sense to have all of the sessions cached in order to reply quite quick to the question if a user is authorized to act in the context of a specific session.
So the statement here is that it makes sense to have multiple buckets (or even multiple clusters) to support the individual load patterns better. Buckets with a high read throughput profit from higher memory quota settings.
Buckets with higher disk write throughput benefit from a higher disk I/O thread priority.
Another aspect is load separation for indexing purposes. In 3.x this refers to the View indexing load. Couchbase Views are defined per bucket (one bucket can have multiple Design Documents, one Design Document contains multiple Views)  and by using map-reduce functions. Views are sharded across the cluster. So each node is responsible for indexing its data. They can have multiple roles:
  • Primary Index: Only emit a key of a KV-pair as the key into the View index
  • Secondary Index: Emit a property of the value of a KV-pair as the key into the View index
  • Materialized View: Emit a key and a value into the View index
Views are using incremental Map-Reduce to be updated. This means that a creation/update/deletion of a document will be reflected in the View index. Let’s assume that you have 20% of user documents in your bucket.  Your Views are defined in a way that they only work with user documents and so your map function is filtering them out. In this case the map function would be anyway executed for all documents by skipping 80% of them after checking if they have a type attribute which has the value ‘User’. This is means some overhead. So for Views it would be a good idea to move these 20% of data into another bucket called ‘users’. The Views are then only created for the ‘users’ bucket.
In Couchbase Server 4.0, G(lobal) S(econdary) I(ndexes) are helping. As the name says a GSI is global and so it sits on a single server (or on multiple nodes for failover purposes). They are not sharded across multiple nodes. So the indexing node gets all the mutations streamed and then has to index also based on filter criteria, but the indexing load is separated from the data serving node and so does not affect it.

CREATE INDEX def_name_type ON travel-sample(`name`) WHERE(`_type` = “User”)

So you win control regarding the indexing load separation by deciding which node serves which index.

Physical Data Separation

The previously mentioned load separation is closely related to a physical separation.
To store several GSI-s on several machines means to separate them physically. So Couchbase Server 4.0 and it’s multi-dimensional scalability feature, whereby the dimensions are
  • Data Serving
  • Indexing
  • Querying
allows you to physically scale-up per individual dimension. A node wich runs the query service can now have more CPU-s whereby a node which runs the data service can now have more RAM in order to support lighting fast reads.

A physical data separation is also possible per bucket. Couchbase allows you to specify separated data and index directories. So it is already possible to keep the GSI-s or Views on faster SSD-s whereby (indeed dependent on performance requirements) your data can be stored on bigger slower disks. Each bucket is reflected as one folder on disk. So it’s also possible to mount a specific bucket folders to a specific disks, which provides you a physical per bucket data separation.

The multiple buckets question is also often asked in a context of multi-tenancy. So what if my service/application has to support multiple tenants? Should then every tenant have his own bucket?
Let’s answer this question by asking another one. Let’s assume you still use a relational Database System. Would you create one database for every tenant? The answer is most often ‘No’ because the service/application is modeling the tenancy. So it would be more likely the case that there is a tenants table which is referenced by a user table (multiple users belong to one tenant). I saw only a very few Enterprise Applications in the wild which relied on features (like database side access control) of the underlying Database System for this purpose.
In Couchbase you have in theory the following ways to realize multi-tenancy:
  • One tenant per cluster: This would be suitable if you provide Couchbase as a Service. Then your customers have full access to Couchbase and they implement their own services/applications on top of it. In this case a cluster per tenant makes sense because the cluster needs to be scaled out dependent on the performance requirements of your customer’s services/applications.
  • One tenant per bucket: As explained, there are two reasons why it is often not an option. The first one is the answer to the question above. The second one is the max. number of buckets per cluster.
  • One tenant per name space: As explained your application often already models multi-tenancy. So you can model a kind of name space per tenant by using key prefixes. ( Each document is stored as a KV-Pair in Couchbase. ) So every key which belongs to a specific tenant id belongs to a specific tenant. If an user with an email address of ‘’ would log in, then he would only have access to documents those have the prefix ‘’. The key pattern for a message would be ‘$tenant::$type::$id’, so for instance ‘’.

Multiple buckets are making sense for Logical Data separation in a context of service oriented approaches. If the max. number of buckets per cluster would be exceeded or the scalability requirements of the buckets are too different then an additional cluster makes sense. An important reason for multiple buckets in 3.x is the load or physical data separation. 4.0 helps you to externalize the indexing load to other nodes which gives you more control regarding the balancing of the indexing load. Multi-tenancy should happen normally via name spaces (key prefixes) and not via multiple buckets.
  • Ask Question


The Igroup Presence Questionnaire (IPQ) is a scale for measuring the sense of presence experienced in a virtual environment (VE). It has been constructed using a large pool of items and two survey waves with approximately 500 participants. It was originally constructed in German, but is now also available in English and Dutch.
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Common subjects

computer science | psychology | art | engineering | design | media sciences | architecture

weimar | jena | ulm | leipzig | bonn | hong kong | eindhoven | freiburg | london | dunedin | hull | oslo

Presence is the subjective sense of being in a virtual environment. The fact that one takes a virtual environment for real and experiences real emotions in it has recently been taken advantage of for treating phobias in VR. Examples are fear of heights, fear of flights, or fear of spiders. In our Acrophobia study, the goal was to investigate the relation between presence and the amount of anxiety one is experiencing in front of a virtual cliff.

To do so, our participants entered a virtual environemnt by means of HMD, and were exposed to a virtual cliff. We measured trait anxiety and avoidance behavior, as well as state anxiety and presence with psychological scales. We showed that the fear was determined both by the sense of presence and the general fear of heights. We can conclude that being present in a virtual environment contributes to the development of emotions.

The results of the project were presented at HCI 97 and received a 4th prize at the contest "Deutscher Studienpreis", awarded by the German foundation Koerber-Stiftung.

Regenbrecht, H., Schubert, T., & Friedmann, F. (1998). Measuring the Sense of Presence and its Relations to Fear of Heights in Virtual Environments. International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 10(3), 233-250.


Computational Group Theory: Proceedings of the London by Michael D. Atkinson

By Michael D. Atkinson

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Extra info for Computational Group Theory: Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society Symposium on Computational Group Theory

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Suppose a TGQ S = T (O) is the point-line dual of a ﬂock GQ S(F), F a Kantor semiﬁeld ﬂock. Then T (O) is isomorphic to its translation dual T (O∗ ). We also have the following, which is due to J. A. Thas and H. Van Maldeghem [138]. 2 (J. A. Thas and H. Van Maldeghem [138]). Suppose that the TGQ T (O), with O = O(n, 2n, q) and q odd, is the point-line dual of a ﬂock GQ S(F), where the point (∞) of S(F) corresponds to the line η of Type (b) of T (O). Then T (O) is good at the element η if and only if F is a Kantor semiﬁeld ﬂock.

E. Payne [82]. Let q = 35 . 5. The Other Known Flock GQ’s of Order (q 2, q), q Odd 37 t ∈ GF(q), deﬁne a semiﬁeld ﬂock of the quadratic cone with equation X0 X1 = X22 of PG(3, q). The ﬂock, which is called the Penttila-Williams ﬂock, was constructed by L. Bader, G. Lunardon and I. Pinneri in [4] using the Penttila-Williams ovoid of Q(4, 35 ) deﬁned in [100]. The corresponding GQ, that is, the translation dual of S(F)D , is therefore referred to as the (sporadic) Penttila-Williams generalized quadrangle.

Proof. It is clear that if v and w are non-collinear points of p⊥ which are ﬁxed by a whorl about p, then every point of the span {v, w}⊥⊥ is also ﬁxed by the whorl. Now suppose Np is the net which arises from p, and suppose that Np is the (not necessarily proper) subnet of Np of order t + 1 which is generated by u, q and r. Then every point of Np is ﬁxed by φ by the previous observation. 1 it is an aﬃne plane of order t and s = t2 . Also, there arises a proper subquadrangle S of S of order t. 4 it follows that there is a proper subquadrangle Sφ of order (s , t), s = 1, which is ﬁxed pointwise (and then also linewise) by φ.

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A Penny's Worth

Pianist and Composer, Paul Cardall

Paul Cardall is a pianist, composer and owner of Stone Angel Music, an independent label whose goal is to create music which "enriches, enlightens and heals the soul".

» Quotes by Paul Cardall» Straw poll votes by Paul Cardall

Many give up playing a musical instrument in their youth, but few return, let alone to forge a career. Can you describe discovering not only your talent for, but also your passion for music and the ways in which music has impacted your life both tangibly and intangibly?
I imagine most of you wanted to take piano lessons and after a few months wanted to quit. I was one of them. Yet, I developed a love of music and pop culture as a product of the 70s, 80s, and MTV. During that time I learned to play melodies on the piano by ear, but when a friend of mine in high school tragically died I prayed to God for understanding. This was devastating. Over the next few days I found myself at the family piano creating my own song. When I played the piece for my friend’s parents, for me personally, I knew I wanted to share more of this with others. The tune helped me through a hard time. The very heart of my music has been to compose uplifting instrumentals to heal and provide peace to listeners.

As a Mormon artist, whose faith is tightly bound to the DNA of your work, can you talk about the ways in which the religious nature of your music is both a help and a hindrance?
Jesus is the very heart of my music and life. I believe He gave me the gift and could very well take it away. So, I don’t make religion an issue. It is who I am and always will be. People of all faiths are buying my music in Asia, Europe, and throughout North and South America. They don’t care where it comes from. They’re searching for something uplifting.
The first handful of Jelly Belly candies taste good, but the law of diminishing returns quickly kicks in as a person's taste buds become exponentially insensitive to their flavor. Do you find that the necessary practice required to perfect a song reduces its emotional potency?
When I get frustrated I move on to something else. If the tune doesn’t come to me at the moment I give it a few days. The frustration lies with seeing something you and other musicians feel is a masterpiece only to have it rejected by the buying audience. Oh well, move on to the next project.

Some of the traditional songs I've arranged can become redundant. But, my original music becomes more enjoyable because as I grow in my own abilities it is much easier to play these with a nostalgic feeling.
Would you liken musical composition to painting (as something which you create), or butterfly catching (as something you merely capture)? And do musical compositions come to you in a sequential, linear fashion or do you see a piece in its entirety before putting pen to paper?
Composing for me is like painting. It evolves and improves as you work on it. I begin with a theme, then a bridge, and a chorus. I like the hit song format rather than the tune that takes you to unexpected places that sound cool to a composer but make no sense or are uncomfortable for the audience.

A hit song consists usually of a verse then the chorus back to the verse followed by the chorus and a bridge into another chorus ending where you began. This is usually referred to as playing A A B A A B C B A. The other formula creates a composition from point A to Z.

In the modern digital age where instruments and instrumentalists are almost flawlessly mimicked or surpassed by computers and engineers, what does a traditional musician have to offer that is exempt from technological threats?
The only thing technology has done is allow more people to enjoy creating their own albums. I imagine it’s extremely therapeutic for these folks to have a creative outlet. Life is so hectic. I love all the new technology and have used modules and synthesizers throughout my recordings. My album “Faithful” has this technology throughout the recording. The only thing a traditional musician has to offer exempt from technology is pure talent. You either have it or you don’t. If you don’t I probably wouldn’t ask yourself why your homemade album didn’t sell to more than family and friends.
Creative freedom is the mantra of many modern musicians and has given rise to the greater prevalence of independent record labels. As an artist formerly under Virgin Records' Narada label, can you talk about the value in allying with an established record label, particularly in light of technology's lowering of the barriers to entry into the music business?
What most people don't understand is that a record label is an investment company, known as a venture capitalist. However, because of the digital world it’s becoming easier for an artist with a business and marketing mind to cut out the label. An artist can get his or her own distribution, which is why you used to need a label.

I signed with Narada because I had already exhausted all of my distribution routes for my album “The Christmas Box” inspired by the #1 NY Times best seller. They opened up more distribution. I hung on to these distribution contacts so when my contract with Narada was over I could continue to distribute new albums through my own company. This was only possible because we had great marketing and public relations. Overall, labels are great if you need financial help and a partner experienced in the business.

Record company executives are often portrayed as the villains of the music industry while artists are projected as heroes pursuing the noble ideal of artistic freedom. As both a record company executive and an artist, can you talk about the relationship between labels and their artists and whether profitability and artistic freedom are competing interests?
It’s all a misunderstanding. Artists need to keep in mind that their manager, lawyer, booking agent, and tour manager are a business and the record label is their banker with some distribution and political contact with large corporations. You don’t need them to make a living. If they’re your banker they take a large cut of the pie leaving your business with anywhere from 9-25%. If you run the show yourself with your team, you guys can make up to 70% of profits.
There's been a marked shift in commercial thinking in recent decades away from making what people want, to making people want what is being sold. With art being both a form of self expression and a source of commercial profit, how do you balance creating music for your tastes with catering to the market's?
Every recording has been to pay the bills and to a specific audience. I think every working artist will agree although they won’t admit it. I’ve had some recordings I’ve loved more than others but the overall objective was to please an audience.

I know musicians who are amazing but won’t share their talent until they feel good enough about it. It’s unfortunate. I try to remind them that we won’t know what’s true art until 50-100 years from now. So why does it matter' Write a song and share it. We are just beginning to study the Beatles and Elvis in college, but they are still part of the very end section of a really thick music appreciation book.
AirAsia founder, Tony Fernandes noted that one of the major failures of budding entrepreneurs is that they believe in themselves more than their ideas. How can musicians guard against similar over self-confidence sabotaging their work and career?
I remind myself I’m an amateur musician who loves the music business.
Film actors often talk about the squeamishness that afflicts them when watching their own performances on screen. How do you feel about listening to your own musical recordings?
When you give your all to a project you are so happy when it’s finished and it’s inside of you so deeply there’s no need to listen again because you know the recording so well. I enjoy pulling the album out after a year and hearing all of the imperfections. It’s beautiful. It’s a period of my life. I can’t change it. I can only look ahead to the next project.
There's an entertainment industry phenomenon, which sees singers dreaming of acting careers and actors dreaming of singing careers. Despite your talent as a pianist, having covered styles from classical to jazz, do you find your interests tugging you in any unchartered directions?
No. I am what I am, always evolving and taking life one day at a time. I wouldn’t mind changing careers. Maybe write a film, or work in advertising.
You were born with a serious congenital heart defect which doctors expected to be fatal, then waited 36 years for a life saving heart transplant which most patients have received by their late teens. Can you talk about both the practical and personal effects of this illness and the role which adversity has played in shaping your character?
My heart defect has been a tremendous blessing. I was told from day one, “you shouldn’t be alive.” Doctors have said, “You won’t live very long.” Death is always forefront in my mind. That is how I live. Acknowledging your own death, because all of us will die, motivates you to live and enjoy everyone and everything around you. God has been good to me with this perspective.

Straw Polls at strawpolling.com
Paul Cardall's responses to straw polls at strawpolling.com / See how they compare to the consensus.
Which do you prefer? Raindrops on roses,  whiskers on kittens,  bright copper kettles,  warm woolen mittens or  brown paper packages tied up with strings.
raindrops on roses
Would you rather have a flower, an insect or a library named after you?
an insect
If you were a professional athlete, would you rather be bad enough to be famous or average enough to be anonymous?
average enough to be anonymous
Would you rather be stuck in a booby trapped elevator with MacGyver or Batman?
If Superman and the Incredible Hulk were to arm wrestle, who would win?


What is Nanotechnology?

Nanotechnology is a collective term encompassing aspects of various scientific fields, such as physics, chemistry, biology, etc. The term 'Nanotechnology' has been receiving substantial coverage in popular media, from news reports to books and adventure/science fiction movies and television.

City street, pin, cells, DNA strand

Nano means 10-9, or 1 billionth. A nanometre in therefore 1 billionth of a metre. This is several hundred times smaller than the wavelength of visible light (10-7m). Nanotechnology, or nanoscience, refers to the science and technology of objects that have dimensions on this length scale. Exact definitions for how small an object has to be to qualify as nano can vary, but it is generally taken to be 100nm or less.

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Carbon nanotube and Indium atomic wires

So what's so special about this? When the dimensions of a material become this small the matarial can behave in unusual or atypical ways. Scientists and engineers can make use of this behaviour in the fabrication of new and exciting electronic devices, medicines and biotechnology, strong materials and coatings, to name but a few. To learn more, click on nanotechnology fundamentals, or uses of nanotechnology.

For further information on how nanotechnological objects are created and manipulated, see fabrication and tools.

To learn more about the evolution of nanotechnology up to present times, see the timeline.


Time For A Digital Overhaul Of The Planning System?

05/06/2017 16:34

Urban planning decides the layout and fabric of our cities. It influences the protection and use of the environment. It shapes how we live our lives.

In many ways the planning system has done a good job: trying to balance competing demands for scarce resources and mediating between economic forces and the views of local communities. And, over the years, it has proved remarkably resilient.

But the system certainly has its flaws - and its critics. Complex language, outdated processes, and professional interests conspire to make the planning process time-consuming, expensive and obscure to outsiders.

Jargon is partly to blame. It helps developers, consultants, planners, infrastructure agencies, and politicians to keep knowledge hidden, or at least privileged, sometimes in order to game the system.

On other occasions, information is simply locked away by those who control it. And much of the time, it's because planning records are often still on paper, in non-machine readable formats, making them ill-suited to sharing.

Of course, the burying of knowledge isn't necessarily done on purpose. Planning authorities are bursting at the seams, with boxes full of planning application drawings and supporting documents which are rarely read. Planning officers trawl through drawings measuring the area of flats, or distances between bedrooms; or spend hours deciding on specific sensitive viewpoints that may need assessing to make semi-informed decisions on the impacts of development on a conservation area or listed building.

City administrations still rely on a 'call for sites' to estimate the amount of development land available. Developers then scramble over each other offering inflated amounts of money for land and then rely on case officers being over-stretched and poorly informed in order to negotiate affordable housing contributions down to a minimum.

The extent of this problem can be seen by the existence of the online platform 'Concrete Action'. It allows local authority planners and those working for developers to leak critical and confidential documents, and decodes the planning system for local citizens who want to resist development. It shows what happens when professional gatekeepers and industry players hide their knowledge behind walls: people try to break them down.

The fact that the planning system remains so analogue and un-transparent contributes to the poor functioning of the land and development market, and creates high barriers to entry. This makes it difficult for challengers and disruptors who would encourage competition and boost effectiveness.

So, what we need, is a new way to plan. When we consider how big data, artificial intelligence, and visualisation have transformed the way we process and interpret information, isn't it time for PlanTech to follow FinTech, GovTech and PropTech?

The potential is huge, and some technologies are already in use. Sensors, for example, are being deployed to collect data on how people are using cities. This means real-time data on the number of homes built and how they're occupied, the extent to which streets are overcrowded, how often car parking spaces are being used, or the popularity of parks, can all be quantified and measured.

Agent-based modelling technology is giving us the ability to create significantly more complex models taking into account population demographics, land market, transport and social infrastructure and even cultural trends, which can all be modelled simultaneously. And the application of Building Information Modellling (BIM) to understand neighbourhoods and whole cities will only enrich this.

At the same time, virtual, mixed and augmented reality allow us to easily build virtual models of our cities to explore the impacts of development on our skylines or daylight hours, and experience the resulting design of our streets and spaces. This will make it cheaper and easier to consult and optimise before anything is built.

Or course, progressive local authorities are already working on this. Talking to city officials over recent weeks from Hackney, Newcastle and Plymouth I've been really impressed by the drive and creativity they are bringing to changing the planning system.

And there are some great SMEs, too, in this space. Commonplace offers an online consultation platform. Land Insight makes it easier to search for land. Space Syntax models the impacts of planning on human behaviour. And Toolz is creating a custom-made 3D interface to allow planning officers to assess development proposals within a live 3D model of the city.

My organisation, Future Cities Catapult, is also investing in innovations for a more transparent, data-driven and digitally-enabled system. And as part of the upcoming London Tech Week, we're hosting a range of PlanTech events from our Urban Innovation Centre in Clerkenwell, where we'll be showcasing the best in class and hosting a number of free talks on the subject.

A hundred years after the first Housing and Town Planning Acts, it is surely time to harness 21st Century tools and technologies to create a better planning system?


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Most recent Publications

Zaretskaya N, Fischl B, Reuter M, Renvall V and Polimeni JR (January-2018) Advantages of cortical surface reconstruction using submillimeter 7 T MEMPRAGE NeuroImage 165 11-26.
Mölbert SC, Klein L, Thaler A, Mohler BJ, Brozzo C, Martus P, Karnath H-, Zipfel S and Giel KE (November-2017) Depictive and metric body size estimation in anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa: A systematic review and meta-analysis Clinical Psychology Review 57 21–31.
Avdievich N, Pfrommer A, Giapitzakis IA and Henninmg A (October-2017) Analytical modeling provides new insight into complex mutual coupling between surface loops at ultrahigh fields NMR in Biomedicine 30(10) 1-13.
Bailey DL, Pichler BJ, Gückel B, Antoch G, Barthel H, Bhujwalla ZM, Biskup S, Biswal S, Bitzer M, Boellaard R, Braren RF, Brendle C, Brindle K, Chiti A, la Fougère C, Gillies R, Goh V, Goyen M, Hacker M, Heukamp L, Knudsen GM, Krackhardt AL, Law I, Morris CJ, Nikolaou K, Nuyts J, Ordonez AA, Pantel K, Quick HH, Riklund K, Sabri O, Sattler B, Troost EGC, Zaiss M, Zender L and Beyer T (October-2017) Combined PET/MRI: Global Warming: Summary Report of the 6th International Workshop on PET/MRI, March 27–29, 2017, Tübingen, Germany Molecular Imaging and Biology Epub ahead.
Chadzynski GL, Bause J, Shajan G, Pohmann R, Scheffler K and Ehses P (October-2017) Fast and efficient free induction decay MR spectroscopic imaging of the human brain at 9.4 Tesla Magnetic Resonance in Medicine 78(4) 1281–1295.

Motion Simulators

CyberMotion Simulator

MPI CyberMotion Simulator with cabin
open cabin
Sustained accelerations are usually simulated by use of motion cueing algorithms that involve washout filters. Using these algorithms, a fraction of the gravity vector generates the sensation of acceleration by an unperceived backward tilt of the cabin. A different solution to simulate sustained accelerations involves centrifugal force. If a subject is rotated continuously, the canal system adapts and the centrifugal force generates the perception of an ongoing acceleration. Both solutions require the subject to be seated in a closed cabin because the visual system would otherwise destroy the illusion.

Together with a local company (BEC, Reutlingen) the MPI developed a closed cabin for the MPS Cyber Motion Simulator. The cabin is equipped with a stereo projection and mounting possibilities for force feedback haptic devices like the Sensodrive steering wheel and the Wittenstein controls used for helicopter and flight simulation. To achieve continuous rotation around the base axis, the robot arm was modified by the manufacturer (KUKA robot AG, Germany). The robot was equipped with a different transmission and further mechanical modifications. Motor power and electrical control signals are transmitted to the robot by slip rings, an outer slip ring for power lines and an inner slip ring for high frequency signals. In its standard configuration, the cabin is attached to the robot flange from behind. In this configuration the subject faces outwards and it is possible to simulate constant deceleration by rotating the robot around its base axis. The 6 axes of the robot do not allow the possibility to place the subject facing inwards towards the base of the robot, so as to simulate constant acceleration. In order to achieve this possibility, the cabin was equipped with an actuated seventh axis. The C-shaped flange, along which the cabin axis can slide, provides the possibility to steer the robot into a position in which the cabin is attached to the robot flange from below. In this configuration, turning the last robot axis allows placing the subject towards the center of rotation that in turn grants the possibility to simulate a constant acceleration. The robot is equipped with its 6 axis controller and the 7th axis is equipped with a self developed separate controller. To achieve synchronized operation of the full 7 axis system, a combined control system was developed. This control system also monitors and supervises all safety devices and offers the possibility for manual and automated control of the MPI CyberMotion Simulator.

Stewart Motion Platform (MotionLab)

Reconstruction of the MotionLab
Foto: GEHIRN&GEIST/Manfred Zentsch
In the MotionLab we study the interplay between visual, auditory, vestibular and neuromuscular system. The center piece of the MotionLab is a hexapod Stewart platform (Cuesim) with six degrees of freedom. Mounted on the platform is a cabin with two interchangeable screens, a flat screen and a curved screen, both with a field of view of 86°×63°. The projector has a resolution of 1400×1050 with a refresh rate of 60 Hertz. Beneath the seat and foot plate are subwoofers which can be used to simulate high frequency vibrations in driving and flight simulators and mask the vibrations caused by the platform electric motors. The MotionLab was designed as a distributed system that is driven by multiple computers. Software control is based on an in-house development (xDevL) that can be used both with C++ and VirtoolsTM programs. The cabin has been equipped with 5 OptiTrack cameras (Natural Point Inc) that allow for tracking and capturing the operator’s body or limb motion.
The characteristics of the Stewart platform have been objectively measured with a standardized approach. It was found that the dynamic response of the platform is determined by the platform filters implemented by the manufacturer, the system time delay, and the noise characteristics of the actuators. These characteristics have been modeled and simulated on the SIMONA Research Simulator at Delft University of Technology. Experiments on the influence of these characteristics on human control behavior have shown that the limitations of the platform filters cause humans to rely predominantly on visual cues in a closed-loop target-following disturbance-rejection control task.
Furthermore, the MotionLab was used to study the effects of motion disturbances on the use of touch interfaces. When using a touch interface in a moving vehicle, the vehicle motion may induce involuntary limb motions which decrease manual control precision. The interference of motion disturbances on the use of touch interfaces was experimentally quantified. Participants performed a simple reach-and-touch task to interact with an iPad touch interface (Apple Inc) while being subjected to lateral and vertical motion disturbances. During the experiment, the motion disturbance, touch location, and trajectory of the hand were recorded. The goal of the study was to gain insight in the relationship between motion disturbances and touch errors.
The MotionLab is currently being upgraded with a state-of-the-art hexapod (Bosch Rexroth BV). Amongst other features, this hexapod has superior actuator technology, resulting in higher platform stiffness and increased motion smoothness.
Last updated: Friday, 14.10.2016