The FaceBook discussion group is the interactive portion of this site. Feel free to join the group and share you ideas, questions and answers. As this is Scouting related and faith based, please keep all posts and images appropriate.I will delete offensive material if I see it or if I receive a complaint. A Scout is Reverent.

The ideals of Scouting are spelled out in the Scout Oath, the Scout Law, the Scout Motto, and the Scout Slogan. Through the Scouting program, a Scout measures himself against these ideals and continually tries to improve. The goals are high, and as he reaches for them, he has some control over what and who he becomes. Scout Spirit is an ideal attitude that Scouts around the world should show, based on adherence to the Scout Law and Scout Oath.

The Scout Law

A Scout is:

  1. Trustworthy: A Scout tells the truth. He keeps his promises. Honesty is part of his code of conduct. People can depend on him.
  2. Loyal: A Scout is true to his family, Scout Leaders, friends, school, and nation.
  3. Helpful: A Scout is concerned about other people. He does things willingly for others without pay or reward.
  4. Friendly: A Scout is a friend to all. He is a brother to other Scouts. He seeks to understand others. He respects those with ideas and customs other than his own.
  5. Courteous: A Scout is polite to everyone regardless of age or position. He knows good manners make it easier for people to get along together.
  6. Kind: A Scout understands there is strength in being gentle. He treats others as he wants to be treated. He does not hurt or kill harmless things without reason.
  7. Obedient: A Scout follows the rules of his family, school, and Troop. He obeys the laws of his community and country. If he thinks these rules and laws are unfair, he tries to have them changed in an orderly manner rather than disobey them.
  8. Cheerful: A Scout looks for the bright side of things. He cheerfully does tasks that come his way. He tries to make others happy.
  11. Clean: A Scout keeps his body and mind fit and clean. He goes around with those who believe in living by these same ideals. He helps keep his home and community clean.
  12. Reverent: A Scout is reverent toward God. He is faithful in his religious duties. He respects the beliefs of others.

The Scout Oath

Since the publication of Scouting for Boys in 1908, all Scouts and Guides around the world have taken a Scout (or Guide) promise or oath to live up to ideals of the Scout Movement, and subscribed to a Scout Law.

On my honor, I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country
And to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;

The Scout Oath is a personal code of living, guide the way in which each Scout lives his life and binds all Scouts together. With the Scout Oath, a Scout is engaged to do his best to obey the Scout Law and it mentions the main principles:

  • Duty to God: Scouting strengthens the bond between the Scout and God through nature study, to see what God is, and by helping others, which is what God asks of us.
  • Duty to Others: The Good Turn is a key component of the law and promise, because it is the duty to others, which according Baden-Powell is the main duty God asks of us.
  • Duty to Self: Scouting gives more exciting, better alternatives to bad habits that will absorb the Scout's attention and gradually lead him to forget the old habit. The boy is not governed by DON'T, but is led on by DO.

The Scout Motto

Be Prepared.

The Scout Slogan

Do a Good Turn Daily

If there is anything that you would like to see added to this page, please email me at

(U.S. Scouting Service Project Donation)

(Ruth Lyons Memorial Donations)


Thursday, January 28, 2010

Muller's 4 questions - basic foundations for a simple life of purpose

Wayne Muller, in an attempt to strip life down to its basics, wrote the book “Four Simple Questions That Reveal the beauty And Meaning of Our Lives.” This book is one of many that try to lead us down the path to a simple life. These 4 Questions will also be the basis of my Unitarian Universalist congregational retreat. Upon the answers to those questions we will weave a path to the next year. The questions are as follows: Who am I; what do I love; how shall I live, knowing I am to die; what is my gift to the family of the earth?

These are the four questions; how do I answer them? These are the kind of questions that most of us dread to ponder and even more so to answer. They require us to give precise form to vast ideas and subtle distinctions, to distill the noble and bestial aspects of our lives, and to sum this up in the space of a few sentences. Moreover, these sentences, these fragments of meaning and language must stand up to scrutiny from ourselves and others. They must stand alone in a world of perfect expectations and imperfect performance and present your view of truth to the world. That is a daunting task, but one should try and so I shall.

The first question before us is: who am I?
Leaving aside all the biographical and biological trivia, who am I? I am a son and a brother, nephew and uncle, and I used to be a grandson. I suppose that sounds trivial also. But that is the role that I have played throughout all the interrupting parts of playmate, friend, lover, ally and opponent. Through all the acts of my life, the one role that remains unsundered is that of family member.

I do not mean that in the mechanical aspect of one who dwells under the same roof and eats common meals. No, and it is probably not wise to assume that the examples I gave – son, brother are the whole of what I mean. I am a family man, in that when I was born into a family like that of my parents and siblings, it assumed a connection of meaning and love and spirituality that is not to be likened to a mere membership. I would open that definition to include an example that I have not yet given. I am also a friend. Mind you, I speak here of real friends, those that bear the Aristotelian covenant of mutual love for the soul (or good) of the other. When the bond of family is formed, whether through biology or experience, I honor it; it defines and colors my life. I feel, think, hope and act as a family member – that is who I am.

So, now we come to the second question: what do I love?
Well, I have to say this is an uncomfortably phrased question. It is a challenge for precision issued in language that is imprecise. Love has so many meanings, some spiritual and altruistic, some physical and ultimately selfish. But, for the sake of brevity, I will put aside that inquiry and make an honest guess as to the intended meaning. For the purposes of this question, I will assume love to mean that which provides us emotional satisfaction. Taking the long view, I would say that I love a life lived close to nature. I have always loved the plants and animals of the world outside our doors. I grew my first corn when I was a preschooler and I had every sort of pet once can cram into a suburban home. Even in the days when I planned to be a physicist, I was a member of the FFA and spend Sunday afternoons in the pastures of my Uncle’s ranch.

But my love of the natural life extends beyond just the immediate association with nature. My other love of learning has been pressed into its service. In the past and even more so recently, have been fascinated with the agrarian past when men and nature had a much more intimate relationship. I love to learn of the ancient ways of living. I have gleaned all the ancient wisdom I can from sources varying from my papa’s stories of riding the rails, gardening with my mother and learning my nanny’s heirloom recipes to reading everything from “medieval herbals to the 19 century romantic literature of the English country side. The folk medicine, superstitions, music, food and customs of times spend measured to the heartbeat of nature. To sum this up into a single answer: I love learning about the ancient simple ways of living close to nature.

The third questions ask us: how shall I live, knowing I shall die.
This is the most puzzling question of all. It is a struggle, not just to find an answer, but it challenges how we live in some of the most fundamental ways. How many times have people answered the question: what would you do if the world was ending tomorrow” How many times was the answer one of reckless, selfish abandonment? Or, if not that, people would meet the end of the world in resigned contemplation and companionship. Both of these are understandable and I do not condemn them. But, the point I would like to make is this. In the long run, your life may not end tomorrow, but it will end.

If we choose to live a life of sensation and experience to maximize our enjoyment of the brief flash that is our lives, then do we not abandon any hope of a world better than the one we inherit? That is, if all we do is experience the world as it is, then there is no time to toil and teach so that others can be born into a world made better by the efforts of the past.

Similarly, if we choose a life resigned to the situation we are born into. If we pass stoic and stolid, accepting our lot and cherishing our time from birth to death, then this life also will flicker into nothing having done nothing to improve the world and humanity.

I cannot answer for all, but rather than live life solely concerned with my own brief time, I want to help develop the potential of mankind and be a steward of nature. I prefer to be a foundation stone, however small, in building a bridge from the past to a better future. This I would prefer to being a lone stone sent skipping and skittering on the surface of the water, until, time spent, I sink beneath the waves and leave no impression of ever having existed. Well, that seems to be as good an answer as I can provide here. I want to live in a manner that gives me time for the joys of family and the world, and also time to work for change and learn and teach, so that the world can continue to blossom and bear sweeter fruit with each generation. How am I to live, knowing I shall die? I will both toil in the vineyards and drink deep and long from the vintages of my life.

The final question is what is my gift to the family of the earth?
I have though myself wise, yet others are wiser. I have thought myself blessed, but blessings fade. I have thought myself just, only to learn that to err is human indeed. Many gifts have I enjoyed at one time or another. But if I was to choose a distinctive gift that I have been given and which I have shared with the world, it would be the gift of synthesis. We live in a world of black and white dualities, contradictions and incongruities, and over whelming amounts of data. I try to analyze the situation at hand and offer to others, a third view synthesized from all the data.

I seem able to understand - where in the decision process one has become lost. I take the information available and distill it down – or up, into the language and format they need for understanding. My version of synthesis is not simple middle ground, it is essentially a summation of fact that renders a clear choice where before there was confusion. Do not mistake this for wisdom. I lay no claim to that. It is more a practical understanding of the way people think and reach decisions. At the risk of offending my more scientific friends, I think I am helped by a dose of empathy and intuition. Also, I must say, this is a gift almost exclusively of use in helping others. Because in my own case, I tend to over distill the data and reach 2 perfectly balanced possibilities with nothing to help me choose better than a coin toss.

The value of synthesis is that is takes a win/lose, good/ bad duality and creates a triad with a synthesis of both choices. Although, I firmly believe in the philosophical existence of dualities. In the real world, choices are rarely that distinct and the third choice of synthesis is the path to maximizing good decisions. I wonder, if I have succeeded at clarity with this answer. Perhaps not, but, this is a hard and confounding question and I have given it my best attempt. So, I hesitantly offer this answer. What is my gift to the family of the earth? It is the ability to render clarity from confusion and offer a synthesis of choices.

So all four questions stand addressed. The ability to see truth in your own world is a challenge in any manner. When confined to a brief amount of time and a limited space for answers, it becomes almost impossible. Yet, I have tried to the best of my ability to answer and to answer succinctly. The search for core values is a struggle worth the effort. For one has to know who one is, what one values, before a purpose for life can be even guessed at. They are hard indeed, these four simple questions, but they lead us to a clarity that can allow us to seek purpose.

Purpose and the free will to pursue it are the sole justification for hope in my mind. Living is easy, finding a purpose for it is the difficult part. A life without purpose is meaningless. It is waste and waste in a world of infinite possibilities and limited time is the ultimate folly. Once one has determined the essence of who we are, what we love, how shall we life and what gift do we offer the world, then at that point, life can be focused. A simple life can have a purpose every bit as powerful as the most contrived and overcomplicated lives we so often live. Real values and real purpose are usually simple at the core.

Know thyself, to be thyself, for if you pass through life unexamined, then you wander through wasteland to a pointless ending. In such an endeavor, the struggle to answer these four questions has been worth the effort and I urge you all to find time to answer them for yourselves.

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#9 Unions table wage proposals

Bargaining bulletin

Compensation package includes ending wage discrimination against community health workers

HEU and its union bargaining partners tabled a comprehensive package of wage, benefit and other compensation improvements this week.

The unions are calling for a two-year agreement with a $1 an hour flat dollar general wage increase applied across-the-board in the first year and a five per cent increase in the second. The proposal also calls for a cost of living allowance in both years to protect wages against inflation.

“Our compensation package is designed to attract and retain skilled and experienced health care workers,” says HEU secretary-business manager Chris Allnutt. “And a general wage increase is just one element in a comprehensive plan to win fair wages and benefits for our members.”

The unions’ compensation strategy includes ending wage and benefit discrimination against community health workers and those in the facilities sector whose wages and benefits have not yet been “levelled up” or received comparability.

The unions’ also want to improve premiums, some of which haven’t been adjusted in a decade: ? increase on-call to $3 an hour; ? evening shift premium of $1.25 an hour; ? night shift premium of $2 an hour; ? weekend premium of $1 an hour; and ? call-back and transportation allowance increased to 42 cents per kilometre — minimum allowance increased to $4.

The unions are calling for these premiums to be matched to increases agreed to in RN or paramedical professional bargaining.

In addition to improvements to the extended health and dental plans, the compensation package includes proposals to strengthen the classification system and address discrepancies in some existing benchmarks and a range of other compensation-related improvements.

HEABC responded with detailed concession demands (see Bargaining Bulletin #8).

Talks continue Jan. 25 — 26 with a focus on community subsector specific issues. Talks for 60,000 community and facility health services and support workers resume next week.


About Autism

by Nick Walker (Reprinted with permission as per his blog post.)

Autism is a developmental phenomenon, meaning that it begins in utero and has a pervasive influence on development, on multiple levels, throughout the lifespan. Autism produces distinctive, atypical ways of thinking, moving, interaction, and sensory and cognitive processing. One analogy that has often been made is that autistic individuals have a different neurological “operating system” than non-autistic individuals.

According to current estimates, somewhere between one percent and two percent of the world’s population is autistic. While the number of individuals diagnosed as autistic has increased continually over the past few decades, evidence suggests that this increase in diagnosis is the result of increased public and professional awareness, rather than an actual increase in the prevalence of autism.

Despite underlying neurological commonalities, autistic individuals are vastly different from one another. Some autistic individuals exhibit exceptional cognitive talents. However, in the context of a society designed around the sensory, cognitive, developmental, and social needs of non-autistic individuals, autistic individuals are almost always disabled to some degree – sometimes quite obviously, and sometimes more subtly.

The realm of social interaction is one context in which autistic individuals tend to consistently be disabled. An autistic child’s sensory experience of the world is more intense and chaotic than that of a non-autistic child, and the ongoing task of navigating and integrating that experience thus occupies more of the autistic child’s attention and energy. This means the autistic child has less attention and energy available to focus on the subtleties of social interaction. Difficulty meeting the social expectations of non-autistics often results in social rejection, which further compounds social difficulties and impedes social development. For this reason, autism has been frequently misconstrued as being essentially a set of “social and communication deficits,” by those who are unaware that the social challenges faced by autistic individuals are just by-products of the intense and chaotic nature of autistic sensory and cognitive experience.

Autism is still widely regarded as a “disorder,” but this view has been challenged in recent years by proponents of the neurodiversity model, which holds that autism and other neurocognitive variants are simply part of the natural spectrum of human biodiversity, like variations in ethnicity or sexual orientation (which have also been pathologized in the past). Ultimately, to describe autism as a disorder represents a value judgment rather than a scientific fact.

This is a useful infographic about autism & learning. (NOTE: The statistics on this page reflect earlier research. The prevalence of Autism is now thought to be 1 in 50 according to the latest report by the CDC.)
Autism & Learning
Via: Online College Advice


Is it clever, or worth, fighting against Peronism?

Julio Burdman

Macri’s gestures of authority may hurt him down the line

After “transition-gate,” in which Mauricio Macri decided to litigate the handover ceremony and seize the presidential baton and sash from the hands of Federico Pinedo, it looked like a new doctrine had been born which would be the new government’s first steps: the gestures of authority.

According to this doctrine, Macri’s government is a weak one, based on a small party with little legislative support — and therefore its behaviour should abound in demonstrations of power. The Argentine presidency enjoys many constitutional powers and that may offer inhabitants of the Casa Rosada the illusion that they can rule alone, bypassing Congress and state bureaucracy. But that is not true. Sooner or later, the seemingly strong president must acknowledge that he or she is not alone: institutions are at the heart of the political system, and the president must live with them.

The need to show strength is understandable: if both the electorate and the financial markets believe that you are a weak president, your whole government will lack credibility. Macri doesn’t believe in politics but he was trained as a businessman and he knows that leadership is built on images and perceptions.

Notwithstanding all that, if you decide to govern through gestures of authority, you should probably engage in battles. And in that case, you should choose wisely and select those easy battles that you are going to win. The new government gathers together undoubted sources of power and wants to prove it to the Peronists.

Macri avoided the Peronist Senate when he named two Supreme Court judges using an executive decree. And he showed that he is capable of reviewing many decisions made by the outgoing Kirchnerite government with the broad Executive Decree 254/2015, through which the new government can alter all personnel appointments made in the last three years.

The removal of Martín Sabbatella — who is not a Peronist and was not defended by Peronist leaders — also showed that the new government may modify legislative moves passed by the outgoing one. The president also tried to force through Pablo Tonelli’s nomination and found the limits of the Supreme Court. And the roof set for wage negotiations says that the Peronist unions won’t enjoy the privileges of the past.

The announced audits for different ministries or the very National Congress (clashing with Mr Norberto Di Prospero himself, a key person if legislative power is to function well), together with the empowerment of Laura Alonso and the new Anti-Corruption Office, are more signs that both the previous national and provincial Peronist administrations will be under heavy scrutiny. And there is more coming.

This is not just a process of “deKirchnerization” of the State, as some journalist said — this set of decisions now affects the Peronist leadership in a whole.

The biggest upcoming problem is that Mauricio Macri’s administration is going to need Peronists to govern. It is clear by now that he is not going for a coalition government with old-school politicians. Many believed that his strategy was to reach out to selective partners and cut agreements with the Peronist opposition that controls Congress and most of the provinces. Now people are wondering if that is what Macri is really doing.

Some PRO leaders say that his offensive against Peronism is a strategy to soften his big opponent. That is, to show them how strong he is, in order to negotiate effectively with them after. Other related hypotheses analyze Macri’s tough behaviour and see it as a way to divide Peronism, working on the assumption that its Kirchnerite wing will fight the new government’s decisions and other, more moderate Peronist wings will differentiate between them. Is Macri attempting to provoke a reaction from former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who has silenced herself? Many unanswered questions.

But the main issue is: is it worth fighting Peronism rather than negotiating with it? Perhaps the idea that the big opposition political party should be “disciplined,” is not one of the Let’s Change government’s best strategies? Besides the risk of infuriating your potential ally, the new hard-handed Mauricio Macri might end up paying the cost of betraying his promises of a consensual and peacemaking government, the one that attracted so many voters in the runoff.

Publicado en Buenos Aires Herald el 30 de diciembre de 2015. Original aquí.


CTOD Testing

Fracture Toughness determines the amount of stress required to propagate an existing flaw or defect in specific materials. Since traditional methods of destructive testing cannot always predict how a material will behave with a defect, fracture toughness is very important in the design stage.

Crack-Tip Opening Displacement (CTOD) is used as a type of fracture toughness testing to determine if a material is appropriate for strenuous working conditions. CTOD testing is the measure of plastic deformation prior to failure in a pre-cracked sample. This type of test is a variation of fatigue testing that has load rates more representative of in-service conditions.


Belgium: Fossilised Poo from 14th Century Contains Genes for Antibiotic Resistance

Ancient poo sample shows genes for antibiotic resistanceTim Forbes/Fickr

A sample of ancient fossilised poo from the 14th century contains genes for antibiotic resistance – a surprising find as the drugs were not developed until hundreds of years later.

A team of researchers from Aix Marseille Université analysed a 600-year-old human faeces from Belgium and found it contained viruses with genes for antibiotic resistance.

The sample was found following an urban renewal project in the city of Namur, where latrines dating back to the 14th century were discovered underneath a square.

A range of phages – viruses that infect bacteria rather than organisms like plants and animals – were found in the ancient stool sample.

Most viral sequences found in the sample were related to viruses currently known to infect bacteria found in poo, including harmless bacteria that lives in the human gut.

Published in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology, the communities of phage found in the faecal sample were different from those found in modern human faeces, but the function they carry out is very similar.

This suggests the viral community is intrinsic to the human gastrointestinal tract and has remained largely unchanged for centuries, corresponding author Christelle Desnues said, adding there is considerable evidence to show bacteria is very important to human health.

Desnues said genes found in the poo sample include antibiotic resistance genes and genes resistant to toxic compounds. Both toxins and antibiotics are common to nature, so may have emerged to protect the gut from them.

"Our evidence demonstrates that bacteriophages represent an ancient reservoir of resistance genes and that this dates at least as far back as the Middle Ages," Desnues said.

"We were interested in viruses because these are 100 times more abundant than human cells in our bodies, but their diversity is still largely unexplored. In the present study, we thus focused on the viral fraction of the coprolite by using, for the first time, a combination of electron microscopy, high-throughput sequencing and suicide PCR (quantitative real-time) approaches."


Software Translates Your Voice into Another Language

Software Translates Your Voice into Another Language - Technology Review“The system needs around an hour of training to develop a model able to read out any text in a person’s own voice. That model is converted into one able to read out text in another language by comparing it with a stock text-to-speech model for the target language. Individual sounds used by the first model to build up words using a person’s voice in his or her own language are carefully tweaked to give the new text-to-speech model a full ability to sound out phrases in the second language.” (Tom Simonite, Technology Review)

Georgia Tech study shows certain words, phrases predict if messages sent up/down the org chart

“Gilbert, assistant professor in the School of Interactive Computing, focused his attention on the “Enron corpus,” a body of 500,000 emails among about 150 former Enron employees, making it the largest email dataset available for public study. Even after taking a “conservative, careful” approach—applying numerous filters and eliminating thousands of emails that would have muddied his conclusions—he still was able to identify lists of words that reliably predicted whether emails traveled up or down the ladder.” (Michael Terrazas, Georgia Tech)


Responses to Feedback Define Mindsets Better than Self-Reported Beliefs

Growth and fixed mindsets are better defined as responses to feedback, particularly feedback on errors, shortcomings, and setbacks, than as beliefs about intelligence. As reported in, “Seeing the benefits of failure shapes kids’ beliefs about intelligence“:

Parents who tended to view failure as a negative, harmful event had children who were more likely to believe that intelligence is fixed.

…parents who adopted a more negative stance toward failure were more likely to react to their child’s hypothetical failing grade with concerns about their child’s lack of ability. At the same time, these parents were less likely to show support for the child’s learning and improvement. Their reactions to the failing grade were not linked, however, with their beliefs about intelligence.

Actions speak louder than words, especially self-reported words that conform to social desirability.

Haimovitz, K., & Dweck, C.S. (2016). What Predicts Children’s Fixed and Growth Intelligence Mind-Sets? Not Their Parents’ Views of Intelligence but Their Parents’ Views of Failure. Psychological Science. DOI: 10.1177/0956797616639727

When education makes problems worse

Insert controversy of choice in the blank:

For people who mistrust ___, learning the facts may make the problem worse.

That’s the tagline from “Vaccine Myth-Busting Can Backfire“, which highlights these findings:

A new study published earlier this week in the journal Vaccine found that when it comes to vaccination, a subject rife with myths and misperceptions, knowing the facts may not really be all that effective in winning over anti-vaxxers—and, in some cases, may even do more harm than good.

The study found that when people concerned about side effects of the flu shot learned that it couldn’t cause the flu, they actually became less willing to get it.

It’s a variant on the classic phenomenon of

the “backfire effect,” or the idea that when presented with information that contradicts their closely-held beliefs, people will become more convinced, not less, that they’re in the right.

What’s simultaneously interesting and more troubling about this finding is that people did change their knowledge, but that still didn’t translate into the corresponding action:

Though the vaccine studies have yielded results subtly different from the “backfire effect”—people were willing to accept new information as true, even when it had no effect on what they did in the end—Nyhan believes that the same sort of mental gymnastics is likely at work across both areas: reactance, the psychological phenomenon in which persuading people to accept certain idea can push them in the opposite direction.

It raises the ethical question of how educators should “first, do no harm” when teaching, if their efforts may backfire. It also highlights how crucial it is for instruction to account for learners’ identities, values, and motivations in order to be meaningfully effective.

Good practice for better learning

Some choice nuggets from “How to Learn Better at Any Age” by writer Peter Brown and cognitive psychologists Henry Roediger and Mark McDaniel:

Retrieval practice — recalling facts or concepts from memory — is a more effective learning strategy than review by rereading.

[Interleaved practice] produces longer-lasting learning and enables more versatile application of it in later settings.

You learn better [by] drawing on all of your aptitudes and resourcefulness, than when you limit instruction or experience to the style you find most amenable.

Better yet, write your own summary.

Empathizing with actions above appearance

In two previous posts, I emphasized the importance of encouraging children in general and girls in particular to value actions above appearance, noting that I would especially want to promote perspective-taking, self-regulation, and cognitive flexibility rather than looks. “Fit and Feminist” blogger Caitlin echoes this sentiment:

[W]hat your body looks like is not as important as what it can do.

She objects to the disconnect between achievement and the appearance of achievement, with regard to how we judge physical fitness:

When a person has a lean body, it serves as visual shorthand of sorts, indicating that the person most likely trains hard and who [sic] has excellent nutrition… You can’t see a person’s 1RM or their 5K PR, but you can see their visible abs, you know?

Imagery carries an immediacy that surpasses words and numbers, even when crafted into a compelling narrative. We process images much more quickly and viscerally than we process stories, and we have less experience critiquing pictures than we do analyzing and arguing using language.

Images themselves strip away context, removing the periphery and exaggerating the impact of anything contained within the frame. Still images also remove temporal context, inviting us to fill in but allowing us to forget what might have happened before and after the photo. In today’s highly connected and media-saturated world, we archive and recirculate images capturing unusual moments, someone’s “best of” achievement rather than the ordinary everyday which we mentally discard. Instead we create unrealistic expectations based on this visual vocabulary in which only the rare and easily perceived is worth remembering and emulating:

[W]hen we hold up ultra-leanness as The Fitness Goal for recreational athletes like myself as well as people who are just trying to keep themselves healthy, we are basically saying that everyone should be held to the same standards as elite athletes. This is insane! In what other area of our lives are we expected to emulate the best of the best? Are we all expected to write Pulitzer Prize winning novels? Must we all be capable of singing like the angelic offspring of Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston? Should we all be able to engineer the tools necessary to identify the Higgs-Boson particle? No! So why does this idea persist that says we must all have the bodies of Olympic athletes before we can be considered fit and healthy?

Even trickier is our tendency to try to identify with the subject of a photo, mapping ourselves onto the person we see (or imagine). As Paul Bloom notes, people are influenced by appearance and perceived similarity to themselves when judging competence, culpability, and worth:

People are understandably empathetic toward the victims of crime, particularly when they are young and vulnerable, when they are attractive, and when they share our race or ethnicity.

[W]hen the victim of a crime is attractive, the defendant tends to get a longer prison sentence; if the defendant is attractive, he or she gets a lighter sentence.

[B]aby-faced individuals also tend to get lighter punishments, perhaps because they inspire parental warmth.

Bloom also highlights our tendency to selectively empathize with people on one side of a conflict while disregarding the other, and with identifiable individuals rather than anonymous numbers:

Typically, political disputes involve a disagreement over whom we should empathize with.

Too often, our concern for specific individuals today means neglecting crises that will harm countless people in the future.

Appearances are seductive, readily merging with our imagined selves and crowding out invisible others.

What we ought to do instead is maintain a healthy separation between ourselves and the targets of our empathy. Parenting expert Janet Lansbury continually highlights the value of empathizing with young children, as distinct from simply identifying with them. It requires acknowledging others’ feelings while also remaining separate from them.

The more you are willing to agree with your child’s feelings while calmly holding on to the boundary, the easier it will be for her to release her resistance and move on.

They need to be able to complain, resist, stomp their feet, cry, express their darker feelings with the assurance that they have our acceptance and acknowledgment. They need to know that they have a leader who will help them to comply with rules and boundaries in the face of their No’s, and not be intimidated by their displeasure and disagreement.

Is my attitude toward my baby’s fussing or crying one of curiosity rather than impatience and assumption?

Am I soothing my baby by understanding and meeting her needs, or shushing, jiggling and stifling her because I want the crying to stop?

Am I following my impulse to calm my child by saying, for example, “You’re okay”? Or am I staying connected and centered by acknowledging her feelings: “You bumped into the table. Ouch, that hurt you!”

Am I hurrying the feelings along, or waiting patiently for them to be fully released?

Our capacity for empathy needs to go beyond thinking of others as replicas or extensions of ourselves, to recognizing that they are distinct from ourselves. We can acknowledge the reality and legitimacy of others’ feelings without assuming responsibility for changing those feelings or giving in to their demands. Instead of rushing to shelter or console innocent and adorable babies—focusing on their obvious appearance of vulnerability and cuteness—we observe their actions to better understand their particular goals and needs, which may not be the same as ours. Empathy is not ownership.

By maintaining this difference in perspective, both between appearance and action and between ourselves and others, we marry empathy to reason and allow space for incorporating multiple angles and unknowns in our empathy calculus.

Criticism? Carpe diem!

These serendipitous juxtapositions appeared in my news feed yesterday, variations on a theme of framing disappointments as opportunities:

“To avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.” – Elbert Hubbard

“Unless someone like you
cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better.
It’s not.”
– The Lorax

That is: Action inspires criticism, and criticism demands action.

We live in a world where there will always be criticism, of others and ourselves, by others and ourselves. The challenge is not merely accepting the reality of such criticism, but embracing, evaluating, and acting upon it, thoughtfully and productively.

In “How to Listen to a Recording of Yourself Without Getting Depressed,” Dr. Noa Kageyama outlines three attitudes to adopt (and associated actions to take) to yield a more helpful critique:

  1. Celebrate the bright spots.
    I would annotate this with reminders along the lines of, “That wasn’t always so easy for me [you],” or “I remember how I [you] had to work to reach that goal.” It highlights hard-won accomplishments as the product of effort rather than talent or luck.
  2. Cultivate a solution-focused mindset.
    For every problem you notice, formulate a plan to solve it. Recognize mistakes as temporary but necessary stopovers to help you survey the terrain, rather than final endpoints.
  3. Develop a more optimistic mindset.
    Focus on what can be done rather than what hasn’t been done.

I would also precede the feedback session by identifying (and writing out) the main goals up front, to avoid getting distracted by salient yet less-important features.

Without action as its counterpart, criticism by itself becomes a meaningless monologue.

The many pluses of positive parenting

Again highlighting the importance of encouragement, David Bornstein describes several evidence-based parenting programs that reduce at-risk behaviors:

As he summarizes, “The essence of the research is that children do best when they receive calm and consistent feedback and assertive discipline that’s based on reasonable expectations – with significantly more encouragement and positive feedback than criticism.”

Neural evidence for “I think I can” in learning from errors

In Why Do Some People Learn Faster?, Jonah Lehrer reports on Moser et al.’s EEG study documenting different brain responses to error depending on people’s beliefs about success reflecting innate ability vs. effort. Following an error, those who believed intelligence was malleable produced a much stronger brain signal in attending to that error and also were more successful in correcting their error afterward. In particular, after the initial “Oh $#*%!” response (or error-related negativity, probably arising from the infamous anterior cingulate cortex), they showed a stronger “Now what?” response (or error positivity, suggesting greater attention).

Coupled with Dweck’s research showing that people can learn to develop a growth mindset (i.e., a belief that intelligence is malleable and that success comes from effort), this implies that verbal feedback may be able to change people’s involuntary brain response to error. (The follow-up research to this ought to include a longitudinal study confirming this and documenting the extent and time course of that change after receiving such messages.)

Now that would be a very good habit of mind to develop.

Moser, J. S., Schroder, H. S., Heeter, C., Moran, T. P., & Lee, Y-H. (2011). Mind your errors: Evidence for a neural mechanism linking growth mindset to adaptive post-error adjustments. Psychological Science.

Misplaced critical thinking

In Physics Today‘s Science controversies past and present, Steven Sherwood compares the current public response to anthropogenic climate change to the historical responses to heliocentrism and relativity. Even though theories of climate change pale in comparison to the others on the scale of scientific revolutions, he notes many fundamental similarities in their effects on people’s conception of the world. Here are some choice quotes that capture important scientific principles which tend to escape lay understanding and which may make acceptance of scientific theories more difficult. On scientific elegance and parsimony in model comparison:

Surely, the need for a new tweak to the model each time more accurate observations came along should have been a tip-off that something fundamental was wrong.

On deduction vs. observation:

the worked-out consequences of evident physical principles rather than direct observation

A common refrain is the disparagement of new paradigms as mere theories with too little observational basis.

On the backfire effect:

As [confirmatory] evidence continues to accumulate… skepticism seem[s] to be growing rather than shrinking…

provocative ideas… have shattered notions that make us feel safe. That kind of change can turn people away from reason and toward emotion, especially when the ideas are pressed on them with great force.

On communicating scientific uncertainty:

“All our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike—and yet it is the most precious thing we have.” (Einstein)

One of the most difficult yet fundamental principles of science is that we don’t and can’t know if we’re right. We can only get closer to what is probably right. Yet science is seldom conveyed or perceived that way. And what makes science so precious is its ability to show us, through inference and deduction, that which seems to contradict our casual observation and which most surprises us. This suggests caution both when employing discovery learning, as we cannot always trust ourselves to discover accurately, and when employing lecture-based instruction, as we are also unlikely to trust authoritarian telling that threatens our preferences for and sense of security about our world. Understanding the relationship between our flawed tools of reason—through cognitive science—and our imperfect tools of science—probabilistic inference, mathematical proof, model comparison—can help us learn better from both. — Sherwood, S. (2011). Science controversies past and present. Physics Today, 64(10), 39-44.

Science answers the question of “how,” not “what”

In “Trust Me, I’m a Scientist” , cognitive psychologist Daniel Willingham argues that the belief that improving science education would increase students’ appreciation for scientific opinion is a misconception, since “Those who know more science have only a slightly greater propensity to trust scientists.” Instead, he suggests, “A more direct approach would be to educate people about why they are prone to accept inaccurate beliefs in the first place.”

I agree with Willingham that educating people in some basic cognitive science (specifically, common fallacies of thinking) would go a long way, but I think he mischaracterizes what good science education should be. It’s not simply about the amount of content, but about an understanding of the nature of science. Science is not a collection of facts, but a way of knowing. Learning more about the history of science (whether in a history class or science class, or both) certainly is one valuable component in providing a richer view of science. Still, it’s only part of the picture. Science education itself should incorporate a strong focus on building an understanding of how scientific knowledge is developed over time. That demands an appreciation for evaluating and quantifying how well evidence supports explanation and comparing the explanatory power of competing theories.

We do still need to provide better science education—a better understanding of “how,” not “what.” It’s crucial for creating a responsible citizenry.

Diligence vs. competitiveness

I continue to be disappointed by the mainstream media’s coverage of the “tiger parenting” phenomenon. Although there’s now somewhat more discussion of the specific parenting practices that are good or bad for the child, distinct practices are still getting conflated. One of the latest that I’ve seen claims that “the intense emphasis on hard work comes with a deep, obsessive competitiveness.”

It ain’t necessarily so.

Setting aside my frustration with the media’s reliance on first-person anecdotes rather than research on aggregate populations, I’ll first acknowledge that emphasizing the value of hard work and discipline is indeed very productive. As I wrote in my previous post, it takes about ten years of deliberate practice to attain expertise[1], and those who believe in the value of effort are more likely to invest further effort[2][3] . A recently reported twin study similarly notes that children with greater self-control do better in school and have better health, financial, and social outcomes as adults[4].

But deliberate practice isn’t just rote practice, and worthwhile effort isn’t merely hours of exhaustion. Both require thoughtfulness in figuring out what needs more work and how to tackle it. Likewise, developing self-control requires more than simply being placed in a constraining environment. As I’ve previously noted, the complex and ill-structured world of imaginative play can improve children’s impulse control and self-regulation[5]. Much like the riddle about the town with two barbers, “just because it looks like what you want doesn’t mean it will produce what you want.” Here, it’s not enough just to put children and students through their paces in rigid settings that prevent them from going astray. The theme underlying all of these phenomena is that people need to learn how to decide for themselves how to manage their efforts and how to improve.

So how does this relate to competitiveness? Competition is based on social comparison, or norm-referenced assessment. While it may be inspiring to see the accomplishments of peers as a possibility for oneself, it can also be limiting to endeavor only to best them and not more generally to excel. Even more damaging, people have no control over the performance of their rivals, and chasing this uncontrollable target can foster that worrisome learned helplessness which can dampen enthusiasm, lower self-esteem, and inhibit future effort[6][7]. Instead, criterion-referenced assessment measures performance against fixed goals which can be set up as benchmarks and eventually internalized by the learner. Not only does this provide a clearer way of measuring success than normative comparisons, but it also helps the budding athlete, musician, or student succeed better in the long run.

I fully recognize that Chinese parents can be obsessively competitive about their children’s achievements, even through their self-effacing denials that their children are anything special. And it’s already been documented that the Chinese culture places a high premium on hard work. But these aren’t uniquely Chinese values, and they can be decoupled. The result isn’t some kind of compromise or blend between Chinese and American philosophies, but a selection of those beliefs and practices that have been shown to be productive across cultures.

[1] Ericsson, K.A. (1996). The acquisition of expert performance: An introduction to some of the issues. In K. A. Ericsson (Ed.), The Road to Excellence: The Acquisition of Expert Performance in the Arts and Sciences, Sports, and Games (pp. 1-50). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
[2] Mueller, C.M., & Dweck, C.S. (1998). Praise for intelligence can undermine children’s motivation and performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 33-52.
[3] Dweck, C.M. (2006). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York NY: Random House.
[4] Moffitt, T.E., Arseneault, L., Belsky, D., Dickson, N., Hancox, R.J., Harrington, H.L., Houts, R., Poulton, R., Roberts, B.W., Ross, S., Sears, M.R., Thomson, W.M., & Caspi, A. (in press). A gradient of childhood self-control predicts health, wealth, and public safety. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
[5] Bodrova, E.B., & Leong, D.J. (2003). The importance of being playful. Educational Leadership, 60, 50-53.
[6] Diener, C.I., & Dweck, C.S. (1978). An analysis of learned helplessness: Continuous changes in performance, strategy, and achievement cognitions following failure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 451-462.
[7] Diener, C.I., & Dweck, C.S. (1980). An analysis of learned helplessness: II. The processing of success. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 940-952.


Transformation - 2008 President's Report

UT Arlington UT Arlington Homepage UT Arlington Homepage
The Urgency of Now - 2008 President's Report

Center Works to Create a Renewable Energy Economy

Drs. Rick Billo, left, and Krishnan Rajeshwar lead efforts to explore alternative energy sources such as biodiesel.

Dependence on foreign fuels threatens our nation's economic, political and environmental climate.

The Center for Renewable Energy Science and Technology (CREST) was established to research and develop the base for a renewable energy economy to replace this dependency.

The current problems we face with rising fuel costs and finite fossil fuel resources coupled with the environmental hazards associated with their continued usage means we have to come up with acceptable energy solutions, says chemistry Professor Krishnan Rajeshwar, who co-directs the center with Rick Billo, associate dean of engineering for research. This can only be achieved with collective—rather than individual—research and development. We are trying to do this with CREST.

The federally funded center provides a centralized, state-of-the-art infrastructure for cutting-edge research and development by coordinating the efforts of science and engineering faculty pursuing common themes.

Researchers have made significant progress by developing more efficient and environmentally friendly energy conversion processes. Examples include low-cost biodiesel fuel processing, substantial cost and energy reductions for the fabrication of solar cells, novel solar hydrogen generation technologies, integration of renewable energy into the electricity grid and approaches to reduce the cost of coal liquefaction.

Partnership Combines Genomics, Patient Care

Bridging the gap between discoveries in genomics and patient care is the focus of the new Genomics Translational Research Laboratory. Established in January 2008 within the School of Nursing, the lab partners faculty from nursing, health psychology and genome biology. Nursing Assistant Professor Patricia Newcomb is collaborating with biologists Elena de la casa Esperon and Jeff Demuth to explore DNA modifications around genes that play roles in childhood asthma. Their research may help design preventive and treatment strategies. Other projects include nursing Associate Professor Barbara Raudonis' study of the link between inflammatory proteins and fatigue in breast cancer patients.

Student's Research Saves Lives in Somalia

Somalia native Husein Anshur's undergraduate research project hit particularly close to home. He and faculty mentor Brian Huff of the Automation and Robotics Research Institute used filtering techniques to make low-cost global positioning systems more accurate when detecting land mines. Anshur has seen firsthand the damage the explosive devices cause. I am from a war-torn country whose people suffered from land mines, the industrial engineering major said. African governments are generally poor and can't afford expensive mine detection systems. Neither can international humanitarian agencies. A member of the McNair Scholars Program, Anshur plans to pursue graduate degrees in industrial engineering and business administration.

Molecular Trailblazer Changes Drug Industry

Tiny molecules mean big pharmaceutical breakthroughs for Daniel Armstrong, the Robert A. Welch Chair in Chemistry. Take his research on enantiomeric separations. These paired molecules are non-superimposable mirror images that are differentiated by their effects on the body. One set of molecules can be beneficial, while the other might cause side effects. The classic case is the sedative thalidomide, once given for morning sickness. While one of the mirror-image molecules proved an effective medicine, the other caused disfiguring birth defects. Dr. Armstrong's discoveries have led to new Food and Drug Administration policies and changed the way pharmaceutical companies develop drugs.

Research Keeps Senior Adults on Their Feet

student studies data on computer monitor

Falls are the leading cause of accidental deaths in people over age 65. Kinesiology Assistant Professor Christopher Ray is developing rehabilitation interventions to decrease the risk of falls in sighted and legally blind older adults. The goal is to figure out new, innovative and efficient ways to deliver and prescribe physical rehabilitation that decreases the incidence of falls in the elderly, particularly those with vision loss, he says. Dr. Ray's methods evaluate balance and postural control using a sensory organization test that measures the subject's ability to use the three sensory systems that contribute to balance: vestibular (inner ear), visual and somatosensation, which helps the body detect muscle movement and joint position.


Polish (Poland)Slovenčina (Slovenská republika)English (United Kingdom)

About project

Infrastructure and organization used for improving the space-availability factor in the developing
Polish-Slovak tourist regions

The INFRAREGTUR project terminated by the end of June 2012.

To see project results, please follow the link

The development of tourism is a growing trend in modern society. It may even be one of the most characteristic features of modern civilization. Never before have people traveled so much and so often as now. Countries, various regions, and many specialized communities have joined in the global tourism movement. These particular areas intend to use tourism to support their own economic growth and development. However, a modern efficient transportation system is necessary if tourism is to flourish. Currently, the development of the transportation infrastructure and adequate availability of space are the basic conditions for the growth of not only tourism, but most areas of the economy. Accessibility, along with the benefits of tourism are the key factors to economic success based on tourism.

It is important, therefore, to recognize the tourist availability of those border regions and centers which are considered to be domestic and cross-border systems. Such information is crucial for the further development of tourism in the area. Increasing or improving accessibility usually increases the attractiveness of a region for tourists. Poor availability or deterioration may cause the marginalization of entire regions and localities. Tourists then leave for regions which are more accessible, better developed, organized and with higher quality services. Economic development, including tourism, is effectively reduced. Modern development of networks and overall regional development must be based on a detailed analysis of availability which optimizes the transportation network system. The Polish-Slovak border is especially worth focusing on. This is a cross-border region which is very predisposed to the development of tourism and to stimulating regional development. At the same time, this area shares the worst public transportation links because of the orographic barrier.

The analysis made on a variety of spatial scales for optimizing the transportation network system will allow the identification of bottlenecks, traffic congestion points and other limiting factors in transportation systems. The analysis could provide specific organizational and investment signals for improving the current situation.

Applying scientific knowledge to practical situations is necessary for economic development. After the analysis is completed, organizations and administrative planning and decision - making units as well as tourism will receive a unique tool for assessing the actual availability of spatial accessibility. The importance of spatial accessibility for tourism development and planning of infrastructure networks, especially transportation ones, will be included in the analysis. This gives rise to more efficient spatial planning according to the actual processes and needs. Spatial planning, therefore, is of primary importance in the various hierarchical levels of regional and spatial policy.

The main objectives of the project are to produce a series of meetings with regional and local authorities, training sessions, and publications (books and websites) to assist in the development and exploitation of the tourist potential on the Polish-Slovak border..


Importance of Clothing

What would happen if clothes disappear from our lives? People will hesitate to go out of their house. They will not meet each other. Sooner or later, styles and trends will cease to exist.

I am often questioned why I have an emotional attachment to clothes. I would respond that clothes should be honoured as they cover the part of our body that should be covered and help reveal those parts that need to be revealed. Clothes can improve one’s appearances by hiding flaws of the body and highlighting the merits. This is my reasoning why I make a great deal about clothing. Besides, it does not feel bad at all to look good.

I believe that what we wear becomes what we are. We could guess one’s profession and social status, characters, tastes and style sense by observing what he or she wear. Clothes have psychic ability to guide us to one’s élan vital. They reflect how one’s day is made of, as they contain the vital information about the day’s weather, one’s agenda and the mood. Like them or not, our everyday clothes and style is a representation of our values, lifestyles and ourselves.

Clothing is simply a form of non-verbal communication. If you knew how to dress properly depending on the occasion, you would be complimented “stylish”. As such, it is neither easy nor difficult to be stylish: Developing your own sense of style by discovering intrinsic natures of clothes can be enjoyable if you understand characteristics and functions of them.

More importantly, it adds confidence as you figure out more and more what you are comfortable in, what you like best on yourself, what suits you and how to style your clothes in a unique way. Having confidence is gratifying quality, and it is why I am enarmored with clothes.


On the Woman Question: An Orientation

Selma James delivered this report on behalf of the Johnson-Forest Tendency. Selma James was an important figure in the Johnson-Forest Tendency, a co-author of the pamphlet, A Woman’s Place, during the Correspondence period.

Sex, race and class - Selma James

How capitalism and the Left have mystified the real relationships between these categories.

Socialism, anarchism and feminism - Carol Ehrlich

Socialism, anarchism and feminism - Carol Ehrlich

Carol Ehrlich's 1977 anarchist feminist text.

Untying the knot

Untying the Knot was a pamphlet which republished the Jo Freeman text Tyranny of Structuralessness and included a response by Cathy Devine, on how we organise radical groups and how we act as radicals so as to avoid a disordered political movement. Since being written in the early 1970s, both these essays have had a profound influence on both the feminist and anarchist movements world-wide.

Carpena, Pepita, 1919-2005

Pepita Carpena

A biography of veteran Spanish anarchist and women's liberationist Pepita Carpena.

Berneri, Marie Louise, 1918-1949

Marie Louise Berneri

Marie Louise Berneri was a leading member of the Freedom Group during the Spanish Civil War, the Second World War, and until her early death.


Paragon Collapse

Paragon Collapse is a Romanian doom metal band with psychedelic, atmospheric and progressive influences, which was officially founded in 2011. The first ideas of creating the band started to take shape in 2008, after a few acoustic jam sessions. At that time, Alex Lefter (guitars), who is the founder and composer, met Ion Ciobanu (guitars). Sharing common musical preferences led to starting a collaboration. In 2009 Veronica Lefter (vocals/violin) joined the project and at that point, the idea of a band became more real. After multiple lineup changes, Dumitru Grosul (drums) and Vadim Puscas (bass) joined the band in 2011. In the summer of the same year, the first demo album was recorded. The band remained active with this lineup until 2014. After Dumitru and Vadim left the band, the project was put on hold. In this period, Alex recorded many unpublished demos. Among them is the re-mastered version of the first album, The Dawning. In 2017 two new members joined the band, Vali Seciu (bass) and Codrin Murariu (drums).
Paragon Collapse is:

Veronica Lefter (vocals/violin)
Alex Lefter (guitar)
Ion Ciobanu (guitar)
Vali Seciu (bass)
Codrin Murariu (drums)


Escape room "Quantum"

Company: Mission Q

60 min.
Average Rating: 5.0 (2 reviews)
604-6370 607 3F-21 & 22, Queensbay Mall, 100 Persiaran Bayan Indah, 11900 Bayan Lepas, Penang.
30 years have passed an incident not avoided, A death, a loss of a loved one, history all recorded, but now the secrets of space and time are in your hands, with hopes of changing history; to be granted one last demand, given the chance, will fate and luck hear your plead. Will you be trapped in the warps of time, or will you succeed?

Found a typo? Select text and press Ctrl+Enter.

Reviews of escape game "Quantum"


 Download Current HansardDownload Current Hansard

Previous Fragment    Next Fragment
Monday, 8 October 1984
Page: 1428

Senator WALSH (Minister for Resources and Energy)(9.38) —I have not heard all the debate on this legislation, indeed I have heard a fairly small fraction of it, but if the most recent contribution was typical of the calibre of the debate I should be grateful for not having heard most of it. I suggest that we should program these debates so that they are held before instead of after dinner. However, a few matters raised deserve an answer. Before moving on to those I want to correct a point of fact. (Quorum formed) I was about to point out an error in an assertion made by Senator Jack Evans who, I am told, stated that sales tax is payable within 21 days of the sale of goods. That is not the case. Sales tax is payable 21 days after the close of the month in which goods are sold. Therefore, it can be payable anything up to seven weeks after the sale of goods and, on average, one would expect it would be payable in the vicinity of five weeks after the sale of goods.

Numerous Opposition speakers criticised, proposed section 8Y, clause 297 of the Taxation Laws Amendment Bill which has become known as the onus of proof provision. It ought to be noted that there is already within the Income Tax Assessment Act in section 167, known I understand as the default assessment, power to the Commissioner of Taxation to assess a tax liability where he believes that the taxpayer has attempted to default in payment of tax. The onus of proof under section 167 also resides with the taxpayer, not the Taxation Commissioner.

Senator Jessop —How long has that been in the statutes?

Senator WALSH —It has been there longer than I can remember.

Senator Jessop —Why didn't you do something about it?

Senator WALSH —I am not criticising its being there. I argue that under certain circumstances such measures are justified. I am also advised that, among other things, section 552 of the Companies Code, which was enacted in 1981 under a government which Senator Jessop supported, applies in a similar way in relation to offences concerned with share offers. In all there are about 200 laws, including the Health Insurance Act, the Customs Act and the Migration Act which contain provisions reversing the onus of proof. Proposed section 8Y in clause 297 of the major Bill before the Senate today is necessary. This was demonstrated by the recent case of Reynolds v. the Deputy Commissioner of Taxation decided on 26 September 1984. It demonstrated how people can avoid being penalised for clear breaches of the law by hiding behind a corporate veil. In that case the company had failed to remit to the Commissioner tax instalments deducted from the wages of employees. The Commissioner was unable to secure a conviction against a person who was at material times a director of the company despite existing provisions which were designed for that purpose. That case is a major reason for justifying the inclusion of that clause.

Senator Messner asked: 'What would happen if a taxpayer were to incur a penalty because of the failings or negligence of a tax agent?' The short answer to that question is that such a person would not necessarily incur a penalty because the Commissioner has discretion, under those circumstances, to assess a penalty and would carefully consider any matter put to him. It was suggested that the penalisable act or omission was caused by a failure in diligence or negligence of a tax agent. Nevertheless, one ought to observe that people should take some care in selecting their tax agent and that a tax agent who was consistently negligent in this regard would be likely to be deregistered by a tax agents board.

Senator Messner also asked how persons on whom the Commissioner has served a departure prohibition order might obtain a departure authorisation certificate. I am advised in relation to this matter that it is important to bear in mind that the Commissioner will be authorised to issue a departure prohibition order only where a person is subject to an existing unpaid tax liability and the Commissioner believes, on reasonable grounds, that it is desirable to prevent that person's departure to ensure that the liability is discharged or secured. Such persons of whom there are likely to be only a handful in any one year should not expect to be able easily to obtain a departure authorisation certificate. Nevertheless, the Commissioner will issue a certificate if satisfied that the person will depart and return to Australia within a reasonable time and that the tax liability will be discharged. Alternatively, the Commissioner needs to be satisfied as to the security being given to the person's returning to Australia or, if no security can be given, that departure should be allowed for humanitarian reasons or because it would be in the best interests of the country.

Another matter raised by, I understand, a number of honourable senators was the possibility of taxpayers being penalised for unintended or honest mistakes. People will not be penalised or prosecuted for simply making a mistake; they have not been in the past and will not be in the future. If the amendments are carefully examined it will be seen that they are directed against persons who fail or refuse to comply with a requirement of the law, who make false or misleading statements or who keep incorrect records.

Senator Messner also sought advice as to how the Commissioner of Taxation would administer the proposed extensions of the dependent spouse rebate to de facto relationships and how such de facto relationships would be determined. The Commissioner is already required to take into account the existence of a de facto relationship in his administration of the taxation laws; for example, for the purpose of the Medicare levy. I expect that the Commissioner would use similar guidelines in applying the extension of the spouse rebate to de facto spouses.

Senator Messner also raised a question about the second reading speech regarding the transfer of losses within company groups. I note that in Hansard the relevant reference is shown as 'succeeding years' and not 'preceding years'. I confirm that there is no intention to allow for the carry back of a loss. Senator Messner was apparently confused about that. I understand that prior to the introduction of the measure into the House of Representatives some copies of the speech were prepared which had a proof reading error. That probably accounts for the misunderstanding.

Senator Messner also asked about the estimated cost to revenue of the group tax provision. The cost will apply in 1985-86 and not in 1984-85, of course, because of lagged effect. The cost estimated for 1985-86 revenue is $200m. When this matter was being discussed by the Government that estimate was given and it was queried by the Government because many of us were surprised that it was so high. However, we were assured by the Australian Taxation Office that that figure continues to be its best estimate. However, it should be noted that it is very largely a deferral of revenue because companies which record a loss in one year and can take advantages of these provisions would be required to meet that liability in some subsequent years when the group as a whole had sufficient taxable profit to take account of it. It is expected that by 1989-90 the cost to the revenue will have fallen to something like $50m.

Senator Jessop —How do you work that out?

Senator WALSH —For the reason that I stated before. All of these estimates of course, are only estimates; there can be no guarantee that they are accurate. The cost to revenue in the first year is likely to be the highest of all because groups of companies which have in some corporate entities a taxation loss for that year can offset that against profits in another company within the group in that same year. But in subsequent years when the companies which had previously recorded losses move into a taxable profit situation, they cannot continue to do it, and the cost to the revenue would be bunched in the first year of the concession and would taper off from there; at least, that is expected for the first four or five years.

Also raised was the question of the uplift factor for the estimate of the provisional tax which will be collected in 1984-85. The question was raised particularly in the context of the anticipated substantial decline in farm incomes in this financial year. The farm income factor is less important than one would superficially believe because of the self-assessment provisions of the Act as it relates to primary producer provisional taxpayers, and the variations in farm income and, therefore, in a non-self-assessed adjustment in taxation paid by primary producers are likely to be extremely variable. That is modified to a substantial extent by the self-assessment of provisional tax liability by primary producers.

Senator Jessop —What is the average farm income?

Senator WALSH —I cannot say off the top of my head, but the anticipated farm income is substantially lower than it was in the previous year. However, there are three categories of provisional taxpayers-not only primary producers but persons in receipt of property income and persons in receipt of other forms of business income. Whilst it is anticipated that primary producers' income will decline substantially in 1984-85, although not necessarily their provisional tax liability because of the self-assessment provisions that I have mentioned, property income and other business income, which account for the bulk of income subject to provisional tax, are expected to grow in 1984-85 by more than 10 per cent-attributable to the general, very substantial economic growth which has taken place over the last 12 months or so.

If Opposition members think that there is some fiddling with that figure-I do not think that anyone actually made that charge-I assure them that there is not; and if they are not willing to take my assurance, I draw their attention to the fact that a 10 per cent uplift factor for provisional tax purposes was applied in the last two Budgets of the former Government, despite the clear downturn in the economy prevailing towards the end of the coalition's period in government.

I believe that those were the specific questions which were dealt with. The Government has two sets of amendments which will be moved in the Committee stage . I will be seeking leave to move the two sets of amendments en bloc, but as two sets, not one set, because they came in at different times. I understand also that the Opposition will be moving a number of amendments. The Government will oppose those amendments. I also understand that at least one amendment is to be moved by the Australian Democrats, and that will be opposed by the Government.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bills read a second time.


back | nextPeripheral Resistance

Peripheral resistance is the resistance of the arteries to blood flow. As the arteries constrict, the resistance increases and as they dilate, resistance decreases.

Peripheral resistance is determined by three factors:

  1. Autonomic activity: sympathetic activity constricts peripheral arteries.
  2. Pharmacologic agents: vasoconstrictor drugs increase resistance while vasodilator drugs decrease it.
  3. Blood viscosity: increased viscosity increases resistance.


Saturday, 7 July 2012

Two new more planets discovered in the Gliese 676 system.

The Gliese 676 system is made up of a binary pair of M Class Red Dwarf stars 53 light years from Earth in the constellation of Ara. The larger of these stars, Gliese 676A has 71% of our Sun's mass. This is orbited by the fainter, and less well understood, Gliese 676B at a distance of at least 800 AU (i.e at least 800 times the distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun), at which distance an orbit would take over 20 000 years to complete.

In February 2011 a team of scientists led by Thierry Forveille of the Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Grenoble at Observatoire de Grenoble at the Université Joseph Fourier announced the discovery of a planet orbiting Gliese 676A in a paper in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. This planet, Gliese 676Ab (in naming objects in stellar systems stars are given an upper case letter, and planets  a lower case letter, proceeded by the star or stars they orbit), orbits the star at a distance of 1.8 AU (for comparison Mars orbits our Sun at 1.5 AU) every 1050 days, and has a mass 4.95 times that of Jupiter.

An artist's impression of Gliese 676Ab. Extrasolar Visions II.

Forveille et al. also found evidence for a second planet, Gliese 676Ac, though it was not possible to establish much about this at the time.

In a paper published on the online arXiv database at Cornell University Library on 29 June 2012, and in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics on 2 July 2012, Guillem Anglada-Escudé of the Institut für Astrophysik at Universität Göttingen and Mikko Tuomi of the Centre for Astrophysics Research at the University of Hertfordshire and the Tuorla Observatory at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Turku describe the results of a new study of the Gliese 676 system, in which they produce additional information on Gliese 676Ac, as well as descriptions of two further planets in the system.

While not able to give a full description of Gliese 676Ac, Anglada-Escudé and Toumi conclude the planet has a mass of at least three times that of Jupiter, and orbits at a distance of at least 5.2 AU, taking over 4400 days (12 Earth years) to complete a single orbit. It is this distance and long orbital cycle that makes it hard to study Gliese 676Ac; the planets in the system have all been discovered by the wobble their gravity causes to the primary star as they orbit about it. Ideals several complete orbits are useful to understand the mass and orbital cycle of a planet, but with an orbit taking 12 years to complete, this will take decades to amass.

The first of the new planets to be described is Gliese 676Ad, it has 4.4 times the mass of the Earth, and orbits at 0.413 AU (too close to support liquid water), completing one orbit every 3.6 days (86.4 hours).

The second new planet is Gliese 676Ae, which has a mass 11.5 times that of the Earth (comparable to 15 times the Earth's mass for Uranus or 17 times the Earth's mass for Neptune), and orbits Gliese 676A every 35.4 days at a distance of 0.187 AU.

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  1. "0.413 AU (too close to support liquid water), completing one orbit every 3.6 days (86.4 hours)."

    I think you mean 0.0413 AU; 0.4 AU would be about 100 day orbit...

  2. 3d bioprinting = Immortality = go to stars

  3. (1)...interstellar travel (to the third world)... we come in our ship from faraway...are reaching finally, that star they call Sun...our destiny that third planet is distinguished from the others aridly and barrens with its luminescent blue against the dark background of the we are under its spell...they call the Earth...we pick up its broadcastings TV...we are hearing the stories that they tell...they speak strangely but we understand... We see at its inhabitants, the human beings very similar to us, outside... We have been studying them in their lifestyles, some in developed places with high level, and others in those other places to that they call...The Third World...suffering, hunger, malnutrition, war, calamities and horror against the feeble... There´s no limit to what we feel... Are we dreaming or is it all real? it true?... We see at their leaders to they call religious...(Torquemadas who were "executioners" against the Human Beings in the Middle Age with their Inquisition on behalf of their sanguinary gods...and still have the arrogance to put their secrets and sectarian religious symbols (channel TV Discovery Max, "secret societies") in popular bank note 1 dollar, if anyone doubts who governs in the shadow the World)...well fattened in their golden palaces... while children perish converted into skeletons with some skin and eyes full of flies, in the arms of their horrified mothers who do not have even a glass of clean water to drink them... religious and political leaders who are purposely keeping the horror because WITHOUT POOR AND IGNORANT THERE IS NOT RELIGION... Have to separate between the worthy concept, strictly personal, believing in a Goddess or a God (wheat) and Humankind´s anxiety of Eternity;...from the manipulation and interested ancient Lie that is religion (darnel)... religions only are a Malign Tale for social control to serve at pontifices, monarchies and politicians...who hypocritically first created the poor..."the poor are always with us"...and after give them an alms... Only are in Earth´s "culture" religion gods, for that reason ½ century ago without go to Moon...religious have very fear from extraterrestrial...because innocent people also will know this... IT´S TRUTH THAT RELIGION IS LIE


2015年10月8日 星期四

Solar Terms: cold dew (寒露)

Cold dew is in the depths of autumn. During this season, the winds come from the north-east. Cool ear from the north east let us gradually leave the hot summers behind. Before entering Cold dew, weathers are very comfortable.
Cold dew is the first of the twenty-four solar terms to have the word "cold." As the saying go 「露水先白而後寒」The dew becomes white then turns cold. It means that after the white dew, the weather gradually turns cold. Remember to prepare an extra blanket to not to get cold at night!
In this solar term, the birds you normally see in the water are no longer there. flocks of birds can be seen in the air. North eastern winds are gaining strength, thus people being to fly kites in the parks.

Before  you rush out, remember to practice some meditation. Solar terms are a natural change of energy between the heavens and earth. Grasp this opportunity to synchronise yourself with mother nature.


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Back to Questions

Question 9:

How do you go about creating your sermons? What is the process from the beginning to the end, the result of which we see on Sunday mornings?

In a previous article, I answered a question with regard to the centrality of the Word of God in preaching.

Today's question is much more practical in nature, which means that while I am happy to share my own personal method, I fully accept that others have quite a different approach. In the end, what matters is that the meaning of the Biblical text is fully conveyed to the congregation, and the hearers are exhorted to change through it.

I begin my study each week by printing the passage for the week in large, well-spaced print on one sheet of paper. At the same time, I print the lexicon of the original language as well. I usually do this on Monday or Tuesday. On these sheets, I write questions of the text, mark important words or phrases, look up important words and their meanings, and interact with the passage in a meaningful way, so as to be sure I am understanding all that is being said. This is the observation portion of my study. I am observing all that is there.

From this point, the text of Scripture that I will be preaching is central in my thoughts, my prayer time, and my study for the week. I may study other things for different purposes, but my Sunday text is now in the front of my mind.

On Wednesday, typically, I will begin reading commentaries and study notes about the passage, as well as cross referencing other related passages. In any good study Bible, there are typically a wealth of cross-references which I use, and then I use a book called The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, which is simply a huge book of cross-references for every passage.

For commentaries, I use several different authors, and also will add in any other books that speak to the particular point or topic of the passage. On any given week, I will have used Matthew Henry, D.A. Carson/Frank Gabaelin, John MacArthur, RC Sproul, J.I. Packer, and usually one or two others. Each week varies a bit, but those are the commentaries or notes that I have and trust.

From that point, and typically on Thursday morning, I begin the process of taking all that information and beginning to write my sermon. Sermon writing and delivery, and the study and practice of it, is called homiletics. Homiletic professors teach ways to build an outline, how to make an introduction, a closing, and things like that. I believe there is a place for that type of instruction, but I also do not subscribe to much of it. The reason is simple: the more focus that is given to the method of writing and delivery, the less focus will be given to the actual text itself.

Instead, my preferred method is to let the text itself dictate the topic, the intensity, the flow, and the points made. Too often, a sermon outline, done with the purpose of breaking down the text for the speaker and the listener, actually becomes the focal point of the message, rather than the text itself. I have heard it said this way: "too many preachers preach their outline rather than preaching the text of Scripture." If we preach a passage of Scripture, with its individual parts and intent, but also place it in the context which we find it, both biblically and historically, the structure and the content of sermon is dictated in those things, not in fitting all that into an outline.

Listen to how Dr. Steve Lawson says this...

"...expository preaching is text-driven. That is to say, the expositor must start with a text of Scripture and stay with that text throughout the sermon. He must say what the text says and promise what the text promises. He must warn where the text warns and he must offer what the text offers. In expository preaching, the preacher is the mouthpiece for a text of Scripture. The preacher has nothing to say apart from the Word of God." (from a series on Expository Preaching)

Sunday's message on March 6, 2016 is a perfect example of this. The topic of fasting was clearly the centerpiece of the passage, but it was the various words and phrases found in the text that dictated the direction and content.

Let me summarize all of this by saying: the structure of a sermon is secondary to the Scripture of a sermon. The structure, the pace, and the content, all are understood from the text itself.

Dr. Al Mohler says, "Read the text, explain the text, and repeat."

So, for me, Thursdays and Fridays are spent working through the parts of the passage and being sure that each word, phrase, sentence, and the whole passage are understood correctly, and then explained correctly. From there, I try to make sure my grammar is correct, that I am not repeating words or phrases needlessly, and that I can accurately and clearly explain what the text says, so that we can then collectively be exhorted to Christ-like change from the text itself.

On Sunday morning, I spend another 2-3 hours re-reading and revising, just to make sure the delivery is clear and the whole of the sermon makes sense. Often on Sunday mornings I make revisions to my introduction and to my closing. After 5-6 days of thinking and praying on the text, I am often convicted myself about the meaning of the passage, and thus what you hear is a measure of that personal conviction coming out in verbal form.

In all, usually 20-25 hours is spent per week in study and writing for the Sunday sermon. This can vary some from week to week, as can the whole process, but generally speaking, this is the way I start from a text of Scripture and arrive at a 45-50 minute sermon on Sunday morning.

Thanks to Ben for this question.

Because of Christ,
Pastor Jayson

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As Stephen Hawking questions AI, will it be the best or worst thing to ever happen to humanity?

Stephen Hawking
Stephen Hawking has warned that AI could destroy civilisation (Source: Getty)

Suranga Chandratillake, general partner at Balderton Capital, says the Best.

Evolution is powerful but slow. As a result, we humans are stuck with the bodies and minds we have today – and we know that neither will change dramatically in our lifetimes, or in those of our children.

It is technology that frees us from these fleshy prisons. Cars and planes allow us to travel to places we could never run to. Medicine and drugs allow us to strengthen our bodies and withstand challenges that stopped our ancestors in their tracks. Artificial Intelligence is technology’s next great wave.

Today, most of us spend a vast chunk of every day engaged in repetitive and tedious tasks. These tasks are currently performed by humans due to the need for accumulated experience, or for an understanding of nuance.

AI will allow computers to busy themselves with these tasks, freeing us up to focus more on what we enjoy, and on what we are really good at. In short, AI will allow us to become more human.

Alex Wood, founder and editor of The Memo, says the Worst.

“We’re summoning the demon”. When Elon Musk, one of the world’s greatest tech visionaries, says he’s worried, you should be too.

Let’s face the facts: machines are only as moral as we tell them to be. And we are all flawed. Despite this, Musk has poured billions into AI. He sees the business opportunities, from the ultimate trader to replacing millions of jobs. But this could still be the worst thing to happen to humanity.

It’s no coincidence that countless sci-fi writers have predicted a computer-led apocalypse. Microsoft’s recent furore with an AI Twitter account showed us how quickly computers can imitate the worst bits of humanity. Within 24 hours, this seemingly innocent experiment erupted into an evil Hitler-loving, incest-promoting, “Bush did 9/11” proclaiming robot.

Machines are logical and lack the emotions that make us human. If we give them the power to think, why should they protect us rather than divide and conquer?

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Chip and PIN or Chip and Signature?

We’ll break down the differences, and why it matters.

This is a big question for retail merchants these days. Many merchants find themselves asking, “Do I need to accept PIN-debit?” Historically, the answer to this question depended on many factors, primarily cost differences and time saved with PIN entry. However, with the advent of EMV technology and regulations, PIN entry is increasingly becoming the most secure form of in-person acceptance, and Dharma highly recommends purchasing PIN-enabled hardware so that when Chip+PIN technology becomes more widespread, you’re prepared.

What’s the difference between Chip+PIN and Chip+Signature?

In October 2015, new regulations went into place that required merchants to begin accepting new chip cards, or EMV cards. EMV cards come in two major variations – you guessed it – Chip and PIN and Chip and Signature. And, just like you’d expect, they have two different authentication methods for the point of sale, either a 4-digit PIN number entered by the consumer, or a signature taken on a printed receipt or tablet screen, offered by the retailer. Fundamentally, an issuing bank can decide to issue any card it likes with a PIN, or without. Chip+PIN is the “strongest” encryption method since it’s much harder to steal a PIN than fake a signature. Right now, most US issuing banks only issue Chip+Signature cards. But, as time moves on, they’ll all start migrating towards Chip+PIN.

So, as the merchant, you have two options:

  1. Accept Chip+PIN. This is the “safest” method, since you can take both Chip+PIN, and the standard, default Chip+Signature.
  2. Only accept Chip+Signature. You open yourself up to a little bit of liability. Chip+PIN cards are less-widely adopted as of yet. Should you accept a Chip+PIN enabled card, that customer could theoretically have been fraudulent, and you wouldn’t have stopped the fraud, since you only requested a signature. Therefore, you’d be liable for the chargeback in this instance.

Chip+PIN hardware

In order to accept Chip+PIN, merchants are required to have either a terminal with an internal, encrypted PINpad, or an external, customer-facing PINpad to allow for debit card PIN number entry. External PIN-pads carry an additional fee, as it’s another piece of hardware to purchase. Internal encryption of a terminal requires a physical encryption, meaning that Dharma has to sell you the terminal pre-encrypted. Otherwise, you will not be able to accept PIN debit. In addition, if you do opt to use your terminal’s internal PIN-pad, please note that you’ll be required to manually move your terminal so that you can allow your customer to input their PIN-number. As such, merchants with long lines would likely require an external PIN-pad.

Dharma sells many different Chip+PIN hardware options, and you can view them here. However, simply purchasing any Dharma terminal will ensure that your terminal is encrypted with the proper injection keys for future Chip+PIN acceptance. This means that when other terminals accept Chip+PIN in the future, Dharma merchants will be covered. Both the Verifone and First Data terminal line are Chip+PIN certified, as is the Clover POS line.

What is PIN Bypass, and why is it important to restaurants?

If you need to accept tips – as many restaurants do – the PIN Bypass is very important to you. When a card is setup as Chip+PIN, you can’t adjust the transaction for a tip later if you run it with a PIN number. This means that as the merchant, you’ll need to run this as Chip+Signature. But wait, you say! That means that I’ll incur liability, right? Not with PIN Bypass.

By using a terminal like the FD-130 that allows for PIN-Bypass, you can opt to “Bypass” the PIN request, and instead automatically request an exception from the issuing bank. In real time, automatically, the terminal will allow you to accept the transaction as Chip+Signature, while still ensuring that liability for fraud remains with the issuing bank. This is big – it means that no matter what, you’re always ensuring that liability for fraud remains where it should – with the issuing bank.