Thursday, August 18, 2011

Labourers wanted -- good pay but must have own insurance!


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Thousands of metres up the vertiginous slopes of Shifou Mountain in Hunan Province, China, a team of workers, operating with hardly any safety measures, are building a footpath
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The workers are building a plank road on the side of the mountain that, once it is finished, will stretch for 3km (9843 ft) and be China's longest sightseeing footpath
48-year-old Yu Ji (above) is one of the workers and he has been working on high cliffs building such plank roads for more than 10 years. He comments: "Young people don't want this job, as it requires them to stay deep in the mountains for months or even years"
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Yu Ji takes charge of the most dangerous part of the project - drilling the holes to set up pipes to support the footpath
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Building a plank road on Shifou Mountain is difficult because the cliff stands vertical at 90 degrees, without any slope or alcoves
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A finished section of the footpath
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Wednesday, August 03, 2011

Fable of the porcupine


The parable is worth sharing but have you ever seen a baby porcupine? Worth sharing just for ths!

 
 

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          Fable of the porcupine

It was the coldest winter ever.  Many animals died because of the cold. The porcupines, realizing the situation, decided to group together to keep warm. This way they covered and protected themselves; but the quills of each one wounded their closest companions. 

After awhile, they decided to distance themselves one from the other and they began to die, alone and frozen. 

So they had to make a choice: either accept the quills of their companions or disappear from the Earth. 

Wisely, they decided to go back to being together.  They learned to live with the little wounds caused by the close relationship with their companions in order to receive the warmth that came from the others.  This way they were able to survive. 

Moral of the story: The best relationship is not the one that brings together perfect people, but when each individual learns to live with the imperfections of others and can admire the other person's good qualities.


The real moral of the story......

LEARN TO LIVE WITH THE PRICKS IN YOUR LIFE. 

 
 


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Saturday, July 30, 2011

So You Don't Want A Carbon Tax

I wrote this in response to receiving a mass email from a friend, advocating for
people to return to sender, information from the government on the carbon tax.
We have seen these kinds of emails in the past and we will see them in the
future, no doubt.

I replied to the original email that this was a sad thing to be passing on and
received a reply that had concerns and repeated some of the usual claims
that we have heard that are quite deliberately being promoted but are basically
bogus.

This is my reply to that.

I appreciate you are not a fan of putting a price on carbon.

That the government has been pitiful at selling their ideas is without question.

The 'facts' that California has more cars on the road is a problem for them to deal with
and California is introducing a carbon emissions trading system in 2013
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jun/30/local/la-me-cap-trade-20110630

The fact remains that per capita we are high emitters but that isn't really the issue as
I see it. The whole world needs to be taking action and this is beginning to happen.
China is building a protype carbon neutral city as we speak and will learn much about
improving efficiencies for wider application while that happens.

This campaign is about protecting big companies. It is paraded out with a lot of pseudo-logic
that taps into fear and is fed by misleading and manipulating emotions. The nonsense claims
about the mining companies shedding jobs... The mining companies will always shed what
jobs they can and keep the jobs they need and it will have nothing to do with the carbon
price. The divisive nature of those who want to oppose everything is not doing our country
any favours. If you are a supporter of the Liberal coalition, then spare a thought for the
words of Malcolm Turnbull. In different circumstances, we would have had bipartisan
approach and a carbon emmissions trading scheme now and we would be focusing
on how to build a workforce for the future that lets our kids develop skills and technology
that we can take to the world as our export future.

We have an opportunity to lift the economy into the future by looking forward. Not
seeking to and subsidise these 19th century industries.

But to your email. It is fair to say that the government has failed to get traction in
this and has allowed the coalition to run with their nonsense and hold the attention
of people who are not interested in looking past the rhetoric and take on opinions that
sound plausible without question. While you are looking at our government's agenda,
bear a thought for the agenda of Abbott. I say Abbott and not the coalition because there
are many in the coalition that are in favour of pricing carbon, just as the business
leaders and well respected economists who have stated over time that there is a need
for a price on carbon and it is inevitable.  The only thing that is really open to question
is whether we move forward postively, with an eye to creating a future-proof economy,
or whether we want to be the last there and have nothing to offer the rest of the world
when we come finally to the party.



Lindy Asimus
Business Coach
Mobile: 0403 365855
lindyasimus@gmail.com
www.lindyasimus.com
www.designbusinessengineering.com


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Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Good Engineering Lasts

Good Engineering Lasts Forever

The U.S. standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That is an exceedingly odd number.  Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England,  and the U.S. railroads were built by English expatriates.


Why did the English build them that way? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's  the  gauge they used.  Why did "they" use that gauge? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.


 So why did the wagons have that particular odd spacing? Well, if they  tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of  the old, long distance roads  in England, because that was the spacing of the wheel ruts.  So who built those old rutted roads? The first long distance roads in  Europe  (and England) were built by Imperial Rome for their legions. The roads  have  been used ever since. And the ruts in the roads? The ruts in the roads, which everyone had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels, were first  formed by Roman war chariots.  Since the chariots were made for (or by) Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.


The U.S. standard railroad gauge of 4 feet-8.5 inches derives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman war chariot.  Specifications and bureaucracies live forever. So the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse's ass came up with it, you may be exactly right.  Because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back end of two war horses.


 Thus we have the answer to the original question. Now for the twist to the story.  When we see a space shuttle sitting on it's launching pad, there are two booster rockets attached to the side of the main fuel tank.  These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBss,  are made by Thiokol, at their factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs might have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory had to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track is about as wide as two horses' rumps.


So, a major design feature of what is arguably the worlds most advanced  transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the  Width of a horse's ass! Don't you just love engineering?

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Friday, June 24, 2011

Is It Time To Divorce Your Self?

Article-0-07ea6225000005dc-69_468x320

Following on from the previous post on Happiness it occurs to me that sometimes it is our lack  of Happiness that is the prompt for many a divorce.  "I am not happy ... so it must be somethng you are doing that stops me from being happy."   So we build an argument to support this idea and we set about fixing the situation. Voila! A new life and a clean start. 

Of course that sometimes puts us in the lap of a whole other set of conditions which may be less than desirable.

The cause of the lack of happiness has gone ... so why aren't we happy now?

Perhaps the issue was not entirely the now departed partner.

Or perhaps the issue that involved the now departed partner was not just them.. What if the problem with the partner was somehow a factor of something we did - or failed to do, that could have changed the dynamic from the outset?

Well if it is all done now what's the difference, right?

The difference, if there be one, is that we can get set in our ways of seeing the world. We can filter so effectively to screen out those things that we don't want and keep in those things that we do want that we can lose contact with the thought that came before wanting that thing. We can set up automatic filters that served some purpose at the time but now serve only to close us off from other options. Other possibilities.

Often I hear suggestions made with a response from someone "Oh,  I couldn't do that" or "No, that's not Me..." In truth this sense of what is "me" is a confected idea of identity. It can be much less a case of who we are as it is who we think we are. To put this another way, it is sometimes just a collection of habits that we retain and stick a label on as being our identity.

Of course it isn't at all.

We can do - and indeed we do do - precisely what we want. It may not be a conscious decision, but decision it is nevertheless.

So just supposing right now you were to consider what you would do differently in a relationship.Consider how you would map out your life to be. What you would be doing and what you would stop doing. What would that be like? What changes would you have on your map?  What would you want to attract more of into your life?

You can do that now.

You don't need to change much at all.

Just say goodbye to some habits.

Review what's true for you now, not what was important in the past at a different time in your life.

Divorce all those old beliefs that keep you from having the life you want now.

The door is open.

There is nothing keeping you.

 

 

 

 

 

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New Happiness Research From The UK

Media_httpwwwimproved_yhaqx
via improvedlives.com

Lots of talk about what is Happiness. Too often we predicate our happiness based on "IF"s "If _____ happens, I will be happy" Sometimes we predicate it on someone else doing what we want them to do. "I only you would_____ THEN I would be happy"

It can be tricky to notice when we do that. Start noticing when your language internally and externally is making it hard for you to just BE happy, now.

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Saturday, June 04, 2011

Paul McDermott Singing

There seems to be a consensus amongst people I know who know of him, that it is a crying shame that Paul McDermott (of Doug Anthony Allstars or DAAS fame) has failed us miserably by not bringing out a CD of his best songs.

Not to worry! here by the miracle of the internet we can see them anyway.

 

Enjoy!

 

Paul McDermott - Stand by Me

 

 

Paul McDermott - Perfect Day

 

 

Paul McDermott - Stripped

 

 

Paul McDermott - Throw Your Arms Around Me (DAAS)

 

 

Paul McDermott - Throw Your Arms Around Me

 

 

Paul McDermott - Heard It On The Grapevine (DAAS)

 

 

Paul McDermott - Please Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood (DAAS)

 

 

Paul McDermott - Perfect Day

 

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Thursday, June 02, 2011

Haider Ackermann Fall Winter 2011/2012 Paris Show Featuring Leonard Cohen

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Saturday, May 28, 2011

The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain

Surprises of the middle aged brain

http://youtu.be/vyy2S6EoV9s


Lindy Asimus


Business Coach
Mobile: 0403 365855
lindyasimus@gmail.com

www.designbusinessengineering.com

Marketing Class - Create Your Own Roadmap
Australia's Marketing Mentor
Contact Me LinkedIn http://www.facebook.com/designbusinessengineering" style="text-decoration: underline;">Facebook Blogger Twitter http://www.facebook.com/designbusinessengineering" style="text-decoration: underline;">Facebook
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Saturday, May 07, 2011

People don't want war... But

Naturally the common people don't want war... Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders... All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism.

~ Herman Goering

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