Compliments by Maggi
You light up my life
I'm so glad I found you.
I never thought you could be mine.
You have the most beautiful eyes in the world.
You make the world go around.
Thank you for doing such a good job.
Thank you for being you
Thank you for the great dinner
You are a wonderful cook.
You are the best
Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me
I want to thank you for teaching me so many valuable lessons
Thank you for teaching me that listening is just important as talking
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Rainbows
How a Rainbow Forms
A rainbow is a combination of water droplets and light, that spreads out into an spectrum of colors. You will see a rainbow when the sun is behind you and there is moisture in the air in front of you - this is important to remember when understanding how a rainbow is formed.
Light Refraction
Light can bend. When light hits a surface it will bend over it, through it or around it. It changes speed and direction. When light hits a transparent material, such as glass or a water droplet at an angle, it refracts (bends) and disperses through the droplet. The arc of the rainbow appears by the angle the sun hits the droplet, the bending of light through millions of water droplets causes the colours to be shown in a semi circle. This process is called "Snell's Law of the Refraction of Light." See the image below for a demonstration:
Light Dispersion
White Light
We see light as white, but it is made up of many colours. When the beam of light passes through the water droplet it slows down and spreads out or disperses, separating each colour that makes up white light as a spectrum of colours. The colours we see in a rainbow are : red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.
There are other colours, but we can't see them through our human eyes - even infra-red and ultra-violet! The index of refraction is the measure of speed of the wavelength of colour. Each colour has a different speed of refraction. You will see the colours of the rainbow in the same particular order because of this speed.
This image below shows light passing through a glass prism, which illustrates what happens when light passes through water droplets. You can see that the beam of strong white light hits the glass and reflects up (the thin white line) and it also refracts through the glass, dispersing out the other side in a spectrum of colours.
Summary : A rainbow is therefore millions of water droplets, each one refracting and dispersing sunlight. The sun is hitting every droplet at a low angle and is situated behind you as you look at the rainbow. The arc of the rainbow is caused by the way the light is bending through the droplets.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Add a Fact about Food
Add a sentence or story about Food
What foods do you like to eat?
What is your favorite food?
http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/FoodFoodFood
What foods do you like to eat?
What is your favorite food?
http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/FoodFoodFood
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
The Man from Snowy River
Ballads are stories written to Music.
The old campfires were where the workers sat at night after their dinner, and sang songs, or listened to someone singing. They loved the ballads that told a story of some adventure or yarn.
Listen to the story sung by Slin Dusty, and retell the story
English Lessons
Welcome to English Lessons
English is learned through experiences and activities that lead to speaking, through reading, writing, listening, and speaking.
Content based activities extend student vocabulary and knowledge, giving students words to use when they speak or write, extending vocabulary and speaking and writing skills.
All the activities extend the knowledge of the student through student research, with students doing the task.
Speaking is a natural extension of any activity.
Students record their progress in their own Journals in individual wikis.
Active English provides activities and experiences that promote the Active learning of English Speaking.
To learn to speak English, you must speak English.
"You learn to speak by speaking"
"You do by doing...this is Active English"
To read more, and to learn to speak English, you need to enrol at
online virtual lessons available..
Ancient Greek Calculator for the Date of the Olympics
An ancient Greek astronomical calculator that showed the positions of the sun, Earth and the moon, and outshined any known device for 1,000 years after it, also kept track of something more mundane: when the next Olympics would take place.
And its design just might have sprung from the skull of the brilliant scientist Archimedes.
View a Slide Show of the Antikythera mechanism
Researchers have pried these and a few other fresh secrets from the corroded bronze fragments of the Antikythera mechanism, a clockwork-like assemblage discovered in 1901 by Greek sponge divers off the Greek island of Antikythera, between Kythera and Crete.
Members of the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project (AMRP) and their colleagues used data from high-resolution, 360-degree x-ray scans to decipher markings as small as 0.06 inch (1.7 millimeters) tall on a spiral dial on the rear of the instrument. The five-twist spiral is inscribed with 235 sets of markings believed to indicate the months in a 19-year calendar.
Known as the Metonic calendar, people have used it since Babylonian times to account for the fact that 12 lunar months add up to only 354 days—11 days shy of a solar year. (Gears located behind the dial face would have moved a pointer like the minute hand on a clock to refer a user to particular markings on the dial.)
Writing in Nature, the team was able for the first time to read the names of the months on the dial, which match those of calendars once used in the Corinthian colonies of northwestern Greece, suggesting that the mechanism was built in the area.
Seven of the month names match a calendar used in a part of Sicily believed founded by settlers from Syracuse in the fourth century B.C. Syracuse was home to Archimedes, the polymath who in one apocryphal story leaped from a bath shouting, "Eureka!" (I have it) after figuring out how to tell if a royal crown was made of solid gold by submerging it in water and measuring the water it displaced.
Researchers assume that the Antikythera mechanism, built in approximately 150 to 100 B.C., sank on its way from the Greek island of Rhodes to Rome, then a major trading route. Although Archimedes died in 212 B.C., too early to have built the Antikythera mechanism, the Roman philosopher Cicero attributes a device to Archimedes that was similar to it.
"There's a chance that it's a kind of descendent of his invention," study author Alexander Jones, a historian of ancient science at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University, says.
Whatever purpose Archimedes may have had in mind for his instrument, Jones says the use of the Corinthian calendar indicates that the Antikythera mechanism was not built for scientists. Instead it may have been for teaching nonspecialists about astronomy.
Bolstering that interpretation, the researchers discovered that the markings on a smaller dial inside the Metonic one spelled out the locations of the names of Panhellenic games, the highly popular sporting events of which the most famous is the Olympics.
The games were on a four-year cycle, and each quarter turn of the dial indicated which games took place that year in the cycle. "That's something of no scientific interest. That's of human, social interest," Jones says.
One of the things the mechanism was well-suited to teach was the predictability of eclipses—the apparent task of a second, four-twist spiral dial on the instrument's back.
Its 223 divisions correspond to months in the Saros cycle, another ancient calendar system—this one an 18-year cycle—for tracking eclipses. Of these divisions, researchers had previously identified 16 that were marked with glyphs, or sets of characters, indicating solar and lunar eclipses. The team increased that number by two to 18.
The pattern of glyphs was highly accurate: it matched the start dates of 100 eclipses that occurred during the final four centuries BC, as determined by NASA. "We could start the dial at any of these dates and all the known glyphs would exactly match actual eclipses," says study author Tony Freeth of Cardiff, Wales, a former mathematician and member of the AMRP.
The device seems to have fallen short, however, in predicting the exact hour of an eclipse. An inner dial is divided into three sections that may have specified the number of hours to add to the eclipse time marked on the glyph.
But the authors were unable to figure out a way to make the times match those of the eclipses calculated by NASA. They suspect that the device's maker used an imprecise method for calculating those times.
The shortcoming does not diminish the brilliance of the Antikythera mechanism, which "has at its heart a real genius about it," Freeth says. Of particular ingenuity, he says, is a pin and slot mechanism involved in the front side of the instrument, which shows the positions of sun, Earth and moon.
Freeth and his colleagues reported two years ago that the pin and slot were used to account for variations in the speed of the moon in the sky. One can almost hear the inventor of that little trick shouting, "Eureka!"
Ancient Greek Eclipse Calculator marked Olympics
An ancient Greek astronomical calculator that showed the positions of the sun, Earth and the moon, and outshined any known device for 1,000 years after it, also kept track of something more mundane: when the next Olympics would take place.
And its design just might have sprung from the skull of the brilliant scientist Archimedes.
View a Slide Show of the Antikythera mechanism
Researchers have pried these and a few other fresh secrets from the corroded bronze fragments of the Antikythera mechanism, a clockwork-like assemblage discovered in 1901 by Greek sponge divers off the Greek island of Antikythera, between Kythera and Crete.
Members of the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project (AMRP) and their colleagues used data from high-resolution, 360-degree x-ray scans to decipher markings as small as 0.06 inch (1.7 millimeters) tall on a spiral dial on the rear of the instrument. The five-twist spiral is inscribed with 235 sets of markings believed to indicate the months in a 19-year calendar.
Known as the Metonic calendar, people have used it since Babylonian times to account for the fact that 12 lunar months add up to only 354 days—11 days shy of a solar year. (Gears located behind the dial face would have moved a pointer like the minute hand on a clock to refer a user to particular markings on the dial.)
Writing in Nature, the team was able for the first time to read the names of the months on the dial, which match those of calendars once used in the Corinthian colonies of northwestern Greece, suggesting that the mechanism was built in the area.
Seven of the month names match a calendar used in a part of Sicily believed founded by settlers from Syracuse in the fourth century B.C. Syracuse was home to Archimedes, the polymath who in one apocryphal story leaped from a bath shouting, "Eureka!" (I have it) after figuring out how to tell if a royal crown was made of solid gold by submerging it in water and measuring the water it displaced.
Researchers assume that the Antikythera mechanism, built in approximately 150 to 100 B.C., sank on its way from the Greek island of Rhodes to Rome, then a major trading route. Although Archimedes died in 212 B.C., too early to have built the Antikythera mechanism, the Roman philosopher Cicero attributes a device to Archimedes that was similar to it.
"There's a chance that it's a kind of descendent of his invention," study author Alexander Jones, a historian of ancient science at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University, says.
Whatever purpose Archimedes may have had in mind for his instrument, Jones says the use of the Corinthian calendar indicates that the Antikythera mechanism was not built for scientists. Instead it may have been for teaching nonspecialists about astronomy.
Bolstering that interpretation, the researchers discovered that the markings on a smaller dial inside the Metonic one spelled out the locations of the names of Panhellenic games, the highly popular sporting events of which the most famous is the Olympics.
The games were on a four-year cycle, and each quarter turn of the dial indicated which games took place that year in the cycle. "That's something of no scientific interest. That's of human, social interest," Jones says.
One of the things the mechanism was well-suited to teach was the predictability of eclipses—the apparent task of a second, four-twist spiral dial on the instrument's back.
Its 223 divisions correspond to months in the Saros cycle, another ancient calendar system—this one an 18-year cycle—for tracking eclipses. Of these divisions, researchers had previously identified 16 that were marked with glyphs, or sets of characters, indicating solar and lunar eclipses. The team increased that number by two to 18.
The pattern of glyphs was highly accurate: it matched the start dates of 100 eclipses that occurred during the final four centuries BC, as determined by NASA. "We could start the dial at any of these dates and all the known glyphs would exactly match actual eclipses," says study author Tony Freeth of Cardiff, Wales, a former mathematician and member of the AMRP.
The device seems to have fallen short, however, in predicting the exact hour of an eclipse. An inner dial is divided into three sections that may have specified the number of hours to add to the eclipse time marked on the glyph.
But the authors were unable to figure out a way to make the times match those of the eclipses calculated by NASA. They suspect that the device's maker used an imprecise method for calculating those times.
The shortcoming does not diminish the brilliance of the Antikythera mechanism, which "has at its heart a real genius about it," Freeth says. Of particular ingenuity, he says, is a pin and slot mechanism involved in the front side of the instrument, which shows the positions of sun, Earth and moon.
Freeth and his colleagues reported two years ago that the pin and slot were used to account for variations in the speed of the moon in the sky. One can almost hear the inventor of that little trick shouting, "Eureka!"
And its design just might have sprung from the skull of the brilliant scientist Archimedes.
View a Slide Show of the Antikythera mechanism
Researchers have pried these and a few other fresh secrets from the corroded bronze fragments of the Antikythera mechanism, a clockwork-like assemblage discovered in 1901 by Greek sponge divers off the Greek island of Antikythera, between Kythera and Crete.
Members of the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project (AMRP) and their colleagues used data from high-resolution, 360-degree x-ray scans to decipher markings as small as 0.06 inch (1.7 millimeters) tall on a spiral dial on the rear of the instrument. The five-twist spiral is inscribed with 235 sets of markings believed to indicate the months in a 19-year calendar.
Known as the Metonic calendar, people have used it since Babylonian times to account for the fact that 12 lunar months add up to only 354 days—11 days shy of a solar year. (Gears located behind the dial face would have moved a pointer like the minute hand on a clock to refer a user to particular markings on the dial.)
Writing in Nature, the team was able for the first time to read the names of the months on the dial, which match those of calendars once used in the Corinthian colonies of northwestern Greece, suggesting that the mechanism was built in the area.
Seven of the month names match a calendar used in a part of Sicily believed founded by settlers from Syracuse in the fourth century B.C. Syracuse was home to Archimedes, the polymath who in one apocryphal story leaped from a bath shouting, "Eureka!" (I have it) after figuring out how to tell if a royal crown was made of solid gold by submerging it in water and measuring the water it displaced.
Researchers assume that the Antikythera mechanism, built in approximately 150 to 100 B.C., sank on its way from the Greek island of Rhodes to Rome, then a major trading route. Although Archimedes died in 212 B.C., too early to have built the Antikythera mechanism, the Roman philosopher Cicero attributes a device to Archimedes that was similar to it.
"There's a chance that it's a kind of descendent of his invention," study author Alexander Jones, a historian of ancient science at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University, says.
Whatever purpose Archimedes may have had in mind for his instrument, Jones says the use of the Corinthian calendar indicates that the Antikythera mechanism was not built for scientists. Instead it may have been for teaching nonspecialists about astronomy.
Bolstering that interpretation, the researchers discovered that the markings on a smaller dial inside the Metonic one spelled out the locations of the names of Panhellenic games, the highly popular sporting events of which the most famous is the Olympics.
The games were on a four-year cycle, and each quarter turn of the dial indicated which games took place that year in the cycle. "That's something of no scientific interest. That's of human, social interest," Jones says.
One of the things the mechanism was well-suited to teach was the predictability of eclipses—the apparent task of a second, four-twist spiral dial on the instrument's back.
Its 223 divisions correspond to months in the Saros cycle, another ancient calendar system—this one an 18-year cycle—for tracking eclipses. Of these divisions, researchers had previously identified 16 that were marked with glyphs, or sets of characters, indicating solar and lunar eclipses. The team increased that number by two to 18.
The pattern of glyphs was highly accurate: it matched the start dates of 100 eclipses that occurred during the final four centuries BC, as determined by NASA. "We could start the dial at any of these dates and all the known glyphs would exactly match actual eclipses," says study author Tony Freeth of Cardiff, Wales, a former mathematician and member of the AMRP.
The device seems to have fallen short, however, in predicting the exact hour of an eclipse. An inner dial is divided into three sections that may have specified the number of hours to add to the eclipse time marked on the glyph.
But the authors were unable to figure out a way to make the times match those of the eclipses calculated by NASA. They suspect that the device's maker used an imprecise method for calculating those times.
The shortcoming does not diminish the brilliance of the Antikythera mechanism, which "has at its heart a real genius about it," Freeth says. Of particular ingenuity, he says, is a pin and slot mechanism involved in the front side of the instrument, which shows the positions of sun, Earth and moon.
Freeth and his colleagues reported two years ago that the pin and slot were used to account for variations in the speed of the moon in the sky. One can almost hear the inventor of that little trick shouting, "Eureka!"
How to demolish a highrise
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How do they demolish high rise buildings when they are in a city with lots of other high-rise buildings around them?
Here is one ingenious method.
Basically they destroy the building from the bottom and up, they take the bottom floor, add hydraulic pillars(the red ones in the video), lower, destroy next floor, lower, repeat, over and over
Have you experience of how they demolish high buildings in your city or location?
Share them here.
How do they demolish high rise buildings when they are in a city with lots of other high-rise buildings around them?
Here is one ingenious method.
Basically they destroy the building from the bottom and up, they take the bottom floor, add hydraulic pillars(the red ones in the video), lower, destroy next floor, lower, repeat, over and over
Have you experience of how they demolish high buildings in your city or location?
Share them here.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Mindmapping
Facebook | Mindmapping
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map
A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged around a central key word or idea. Mind maps are used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, and as an aid in study, organization, problem solving, decision making, and writing.
The elements of a given mind map are arranged intuitively according to the importance of the concepts, and are classified into groupings, branches, or areas, with the goal of representing semantic or other connections between portions of information. Mind maps may also aid recall of existing memories.
By presenting ideas in a radial, graphical, non-linear manner, mind maps encourage a brainstorming approach to planning and organizational tasks. Though the branches of a mindmap represent hierarchical tree structures, their radial arrangement disrupts the prioritizing of concepts typically associated with hierarchies presented with more linear visual cues. This orientation towards brainstorming encourages users to enumerate and connect concepts without a tendency to begin within a particular conceptual framework.
The mind map can be contrasted with the similar idea of concept mapping. The former is based on radial hierarchies and tree structures denoting relationships with a central governing concept, whereas concept maps are based on connections between concepts in more diverse patterns.
http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Download
Free Mindmapping and Examples to use
http://www.novamind.com/connect?kw=Mind%20Mapping%20Samples&source=goog
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map
A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged around a central key word or idea. Mind maps are used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, and as an aid in study, organization, problem solving, decision making, and writing.
The elements of a given mind map are arranged intuitively according to the importance of the concepts, and are classified into groupings, branches, or areas, with the goal of representing semantic or other connections between portions of information. Mind maps may also aid recall of existing memories.
By presenting ideas in a radial, graphical, non-linear manner, mind maps encourage a brainstorming approach to planning and organizational tasks. Though the branches of a mindmap represent hierarchical tree structures, their radial arrangement disrupts the prioritizing of concepts typically associated with hierarchies presented with more linear visual cues. This orientation towards brainstorming encourages users to enumerate and connect concepts without a tendency to begin within a particular conceptual framework.
The mind map can be contrasted with the similar idea of concept mapping. The former is based on radial hierarchies and tree structures denoting relationships with a central governing concept, whereas concept maps are based on connections between concepts in more diverse patterns.
Free Mindmapping and Examples to use
http://www.novamind.com/connect?kw=Mind%20Mapping%20Samples&source=goog
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Imagination Has no Boundaries
Imagination Has no Boundaries
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Stress Busters..Lessen Stress in your Life
Stress Busters..Lessen Stress in your Life
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Brain Research to Education
Brain Research to Education
"The purpose of thinking is to arrange the world (in our minds) that we can apply emotions effectively. In the end it is emotion that makes the major decisions". Edward deBono
The Brain is the most complex organ known to humans. Humans have about 100 billion cells, yet when all are linked together the number of connections our brain can make is variously estimated to be as much as ten followed by millions of zeros, more than the estimated number of atoms in the known universe. The Amazing Brain. Ornstein and Sobel "Each of the ten billion neurons in the human brain has a possibility of connections of one with twenty sight zeros after it. If a single neuron has this potential, we can hardly imagine what the whole brain can do." Professor Kouzmich. Moscow University. We have been vastly underestimating the capacity of the learner. Our expectations have been too low for both the average and the best students. Teaching in different learning styles so the potential of every learner can be accessed and using alternate forms of assessment to provide avenues for those who learn differently, is to provide a climate where every learner is respected, with multi-status, multi-age and multi-teamwork being utilized.
Nutrition and the Brain.
Proper nutrition can definitely boost thinking and learning. The ingredients in protein are critical to the brain. Tyrosine enhances thinking, and tryptophan slows it down.
Low income learners typically have carbohydrates for breakfast,(toast, bread, cereal) and this may impair thinking. Middle and upper income learners often have the more costly yoghurt, eggs, cheese, fresh fruits or lean ham, which provide the nutrients that can enhance learning. Managing your Mind and Mood Through Food. J. Wurtman.
"In study after study, convicts and inmates who had diets low in refined carbohydrates had significant reductions in disciplinary nehaviours....the complex carbohydrates and proteins in their diet seemed to be a ppositive factor.
....An experiment by Simeon and Grantham-Macgregor with 9-11 year olds showed that they became impulsive and had shorter attention spans when they skipped breakfast.
.....There are strongly fluctuating levels of blood sugar among the Qolla Indians of Peru, who are known as the most violent and aggressive tribes in the world. The Learning Brain. Eric Jensen. p153.
Students showing behaviour problems or weak learning skills may actually be exhibiting dietary problems.
Diet affects attention span, ability to focus and activity levels. Sugar affects behaviour, and when eaten with carbohydrates, the effect on the learner was worse.
When sugar was eaten with protein, the sugar was beneficial to the brain.
Carbohydrates are essential to the brain, but only when part pf a well balanced diet.The protective role of protein prevents overloading in the brain by various sugars and carbohydrates.
Many students under perform because of diet. Feeding the Brain. Connors
Water enhances Optimal Brain Function.
The average learner is often dehydrated. This dehydration leads to poor performance. Students drinking a glass of water before each lesson or having water bottles in class also have improved behaviour.
Brain specialists recommend 8-15 glasses of pure water a day depending on your size, weather and activity level. Athletes have learnt to boost water consumption for peak performances.
Students who are bored, listless, drowsy or who lack concentration may in fact be dehydrated. Learning to Learn. Ward and Daley.
Studies have also shown that students permitted to snack on protein and fresh fruit and vegetable snacks had better performance, but the counterpart snack of sugar adds to hyperactivity and poor performance. Sweets and processed fizzy drinks are usually consumed by inattentive, poor performance students.
Diet Programs need to be implemented in schools on a regular basis, with facts showing the community, in and beyond the school ,the detrimental effec
Education and Schools.
Education and Schools.
!994/5 I trained in Visual Arts and then taught in New Zealand till 1998. I then returned to teach in the Australian deserts. The first school was at Kintore, right in the heart of Australia, as remote as can be, where the Mail plane flies in over some very empty land, before returning back to Alice Springs. That was in 1998 when I also taught at Areyonga, 350kms southeast of Alice Springs. Areyonga was ruggedly beautiful, with fossils and wildflowers, and free donkeys wandering around. In 1999 I became Principal of Haasts Bluff, where the desert rose was in full bloom, where I started a school garden and went on bush tucker trips and ran community barbecues and Film Evenings. Here the football team beat all the other schools that year..1999...including the bigger schools. That is one special story. My school nearly got to run with the Olympic torch..and thats another story too. I moved to Halls Creek in WA, because my cousin was teaching there. I transferred across from NT. This was when I discovered another world. In 2001 was transferred to Jigalong, where I developed the Art in the school and the community, and also taught Computers at TAFE. The isolation and the experience of being a single woman in an indigenous community was an interesting one. The following year I was transferred to the indigenous school at Kalgoorlie. I taught Art with the whole school,and worked with the kindergarten, which was another very, very different experience. After advertising on the Internet, I was offered a position teaching English at an University in China, and putting my belongings into storage, accepted this position as Lecturer at Wuhan University, extending my ESL skills and knowledge. These students are now at various universities in Australia and NZ continuing their post Graduate studies. In 2003 I returned to teach, first at Geraldton, and then in the South West. The South-West is cold and picturesque. The Community is wonderful, I have joined International Lions, and the Garden Club, and exhibited my Art at Ding Up House during the Garden Week Home Opens. I have been a member of ACE since 1979, joining the WA Branch in 1998, and my studies and interests have always been in ways to stimulate and motivate learners and create learning environments where learning occurs, using the latest of technology and development where possible, and innovating to simulate and motivate. I am competent in utililising the web and computers for maximum usage. The world and technology is developing fast, and every year life gets better and more exciting, and the resources available to teachers get even better, and ultimately, Teaching and Learning will also reach dimensions that will offer many opportunities for the Learner. Education is a very exciting industry to be a part of. | |
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Active In English
Active In English
Welcome to Active In English, a course for those who are learning English as a Foreign Language.
You have two languages.....your home language, and English, which is your second language.
Active In English will present lessons, projects, tasks, activities, research, and follow-up tasks, to make the learning of English easier.
Students will approach what they learn in different ways, and the exercises and tasks will cater to these different learning styles and levels of skill and ability.
You can work at your own level and at your own pace.
Active In English will focus on the student, who wants to learn English as part of their studies, for communication, for understanding, and for furthering their own studies in a English speaking country or University.
You will only get back what you put into the course, so repeat the lessons, or continue the course as you choose.
The Course here goes to Lesson 9. At this stage you should have the skills necessary to create a Power Point with voice recording, and be recording your voice on Odeo.
The course continues on the Active English Moodle, where you are introduced to online tasks, and become a member of Active English. Please Join and participate in the activities and in the chat.
This course was based on the textbook 'English Knowhow' by Angela Blackwell and Theresa Naber. Other Texts are being used on Active English.
What you learn, depends on you : You have the wings..now learn to fly...
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
How to Survive an Earthquake
WHAT TO DO DURING AN EARTHQUAKE
EXTRACT FROM DOUG COPP'S ARTICLE ON THE 'TRIANGLE OF LIFE'
My name is Doug Copp. I am the Rescue Chief and Disaster Manager of the
American Rescue Team International (ARTI), the world's most experienced
rescue team. The information in this article will save lives in an earthquake.
The first building I ever crawled inside of was a school in Mexico City
during the 1985 earthquake. Every child was under its desk. Every child was crushed to the thickness of their bones. They could have survived by lying down next to their desks in the aisles. It was obscene, unnecessary and I wondered why the children were not in the aisles. I didn't at the time know that the children were told to hide under something. I am amazed that even today schools are still using the "Duck and Cover" instructions- telling the children to squat under their desks with their heads bowed and covered with their hands. This was the technique used in the Mexico City school.
Simply stated, when buildings collapse, the weight of the ceilings falling
upon the objects or furniture inside crushes these objects, leaving a space or void next to them. This space is what I call the 'triangle of life'. The larger the object, the stronger, the less it will compact. The less the object
compacts, the larger the void, the greater the probability that the person who is using this void for safety will not be injured.
The next time you watch collapsed buildings, on television, count the 'triangles' you see formed. They are everywhere. It is the most common shape, you will see, in a collapsed building.
TIPS FOR EARTHQUAKE SAFETY
1) Almost everyone who simply 'ducks and covers' when buildings collapse ARE CRUSHED TO DEATH. People who get under objects, like desks or cars, are crushed.
2) Cats, dogs and babies often naturally curl up in the fetal position. You
should too in an earthquake. It is a natural safety/survival instinct. That
position helps you survive in a smaller void. Get next to an object, next to
a sofa, next to a large bulky object that will compress slightly but leave a
void next to it.
3) Wooden buildings are the safest type of construction to be in during an
earthquake. Wood is flexible and moves with the force of the earthquake. If the wooden building does collapse, large survival voids are created. Also, the wooden building has less concentrated, crushing weight. Brick buildings will break into individual bricks. Bricks will cause many injuries but less
squashed bodies than concrete slabs. Concrete slab buildings are the most dangerous during an earthquake.
4) If you are in bed during the night and an earthquake occurs, simply roll
off the bed. A safe void will exist around the bed. Hotels can achieve a much greater survival rate in earthquakes, simply by posting a sign on the back ofthe door of every room telling occupants to lie down on the floor, next to the bottom of the bed during an earthquake.
5) If an earthquake happens and you cannot easily escape by getting out the door or window, then lie down and curl up in the fetal position next to a
sofa, or large chair.
6) Almost everyone who gets under a doorway when buildings collapse i s killed. How? If you stand under a doorway and the doorjamb falls forward or backward you will be crushed by the ceiling above. If the door jam falls
sideways you will be cut in half by the doorway. In either case, you will be
killed!
7) Never go to the stairs. The stairs have a different 'moment of frequency (they swing separately from the main part of the building).. The stairs and remainder of the building continuously bump into each other until structural failure of the stairs takes place. The people who get on stairs before they fail are chopped up by the stair treads ? horribly mutilated. Even if the building doesn't collapse, stay away from the stairs. The stairs are a likely part of the building to be damaged. Even if the stairs are not collapsed by the earthquake, they may collapse later when overloaded by fleeing people. They should always be checked for safety, even when the rest of the building is not damaged.
8) Get Near the Outer Walls Of Buildings Or Outside Of Them If Possible - It is much better to be near the outside of the building rather than the interior. The farther inside you are from the outside perimeter of the building the greater the probability that your escape route will be blocked.
9) People inside of their vehicles are crushed when the road above falls in
an earthquake and crushes their vehicles; which is exactly what happened with the
slabs between the decks of the Nimitz Freeway. The victims of the San
Francisco earthquake all stayed inside of their vehicles. They were all killed. They could have easily survived by getting out and lying in the fetal position next to their vehicles. Everyone killed would have survived if they had been able to get out of their cars and sit or lie next to them. All the crushed cars had voids 3 feet high next to them, except for the cars that had columns fall directly across them.
10) I discovered, while crawling inside of collapsed newspaper offices and
other offices with a lot of paper, that paper does not compact. Large
voids are found surrounding stacks of paper.
In 1996 we made a film, which proved my survival methodology to be correct.
The Turkish Federal Government, City of Istanbul , University of Istanbul Case Productions and ARTI cooperated to film this practical, scientific test. We collapsed a school and a home with 20 mannequins inside. Ten mannequins did 'duck and cover,' and ten mannequins I used in my 'triangle of life' survival method. After the simulated earthquake collapse we crawled through the rubble and entered the building to film and document the results.
The film, in which I practiced my survival techniques under directly
observable, scientific conditions, relevant to building collapse, showed
there would have been zero percent survival for those doing duck and cover. There would likely have been 100 percent survivability for people using my method of the 'triangle of life.' This film has been seen by millions of viewers on television in Turkey and the rest of Europe, and it was seen in the USA , Canada and Latin America on the TV program Real TV..
Spread the word and save someone's life... The entire world is experiencing
natural calamities so be prepared!
Copyright © 2009, Galt Western Personnel Ltd.
Please make copies of this article, quote from it, send it to friends and
use it for presentations or attachments.
Please give credit to Galt Western Personnel Ltd., who encourages your use of this copyrighted property
Please give credit to Galt Western Personnel Ltd., who encourages your use of this copyrighted property
Success Is Made of Little Victories
Success Is Made of Little Victories
Success Is Made of Little Victories
Everything we do to be successful comes from little victories. When someone takes notice of our success, it looks like something big. It feels like one big moment. But always, and I mean always, it comes from a series of little victories. Look at the successes you’ve had. Did they all come at once? Or did you build up from nowhere to somewhere to somewhere better to a quick fallback to a new success, and then pow? Right.
In August 2003, I decided to get healthy. So did Kat. We started with nutrition. We lost a little weight. Then we lost some more. We worked on our fitness. Then we did even more. Then I got into running. And by November 2004, I ran and completed a trail marathon. I sure didn’t wake up one morning in November 65 pounds thinner and start running. It was built on several hundred (thousand?) little victories along the way.
Start With Little Flags and Bigger Flags
One way to start achieving your own victories is to know what you’re aiming to accomplish. For instance, if you hate your job, plant a positive flag in the ground that says, “I’m going to change roles/careers.” That’ll be your bigger flag. If you want to get really specific, you should consider adding things like dates to your flags. (Otherwise, they’re more like dreams.)
Then, plant some smaller flags. For instance, having some extra money stashed away so you can cover your transition for a few months might be a good way to accomplish your bigger flag goal. So, how will you get that money? Maybe it will be to start an eBay business. (My friend Marsha Collier is THE author of all the best books about eBay and eBay businesses.) With extra revenue, you’ll reach another little flag that builds up to your next victory.
See how it works? Put out a bigger flag that signifies your victory: “I’ll work independently 8 months from now.” Then, figure out how many little flags you’ll need to put in the sand for all the little victories that will get you there. “I’ll look to start taking in an extra $2000/month within 60 days.” From there, figuring out HOW is a bit more concrete.
Praise Each Little Victory. Then Move on.
On your way to success, make sure you praise your accomplishments. I’m working on my fitness and nutrition again after a long hiatus. At the time I wrote this, I’d lost 10 pounds in my first two weeks. I’m happy with that progress. But, I’m also not going to linger. I’m going to work harder at getting more fit, at reducing my calorie intake a bit more (I’m not eating a fad diet and I’m certainly eating more than enough food), and working those little victories. But I just accept each win, nod, and move on.
Never Justify
One secret to your little victories: never use one to justify a fallback. “Well, I did lose 10 pounds. I’ll just have this vat-sized popcorn at the movie theater.” No. Never. That’s how you got there in the first place. Apply this thinking liberally over all the other things you do. If you get a win with one client, never let that be a reason to mess up with another. Treat every victory as crucial to your success, or you’ll risk eroding your success.
Your Flags, Not Everyone’s Flags
The flags you set for yourself, the little victories, are yours. They pertain to goals you’ve made. Sometimes, on the way to success, our passion to be helpful sometimes overrides our sense that our efforts are our own, and not prescriptive across everyone else. That’s when we risk coming off as preachy. For instance, just because you realize that Twitter and Facebook are the wave of the future doesn’t mean that everyone else who doesn’t is a jerk, behind the times, and doesn’t get it. Maybe those aren’t the flags those people are working towards. Maybe their victories are different than yours.
Work your own flags.
Praise Others Often
The best thing you can do with success is share it. Praise others along the way. Be grateful. Thank others. Share as much of the stage and spotlight as you can. Hoard nothing. Instead, give as much praise away as possible and keep only what you can’t possibly deny to yourself. Your success was made up of many other helping hands. Do what you can to thank them.
Success Accepts Temporary Setbacks and Failures
I called my business New Marketing Labs because I wanted us to always be experimenting. We win business by telling our partners that sometimes we’re not sure the outcome of our efforts until we give it a try. We have, on many occasions, told someone in a meeting, “We’re not really sure if this will yield, but we’re going to try it, and if it does, we’ll do it some more. If it doesn’t, we’ll figure out how to make things work.”
Experimentation, failure, and setbacks are all part of the map. Just don’t dwell on them. Airplanes are off-course 90% of the time, I once read. As long as they land safely and on time (oh, how I wish), that’s good enough for everyone involved. Accept your setbacks (but learn from them).
What Happens With Success
Depending on your views, what happens next is usually the most important. When I’m successful, I do what I can to educate others in how they can accomplish what I’ve done, or at least they can have access to the tools I used to get there. Teaching, raising others up, doing what one can to bring success to others is perhaps the biggest measure of the real value of success. It’s not money that determines success. It’s not fame. It’s the chance to help others with their own success that I value most of all.
Our efforts to achieve success hinge on little victories. When it’s all said and done, after 10,000 hours of hard work, the external sense that it all seems effortless is just another external sign that you’ve worked hard to achieve your position. But it’s really only the start of another kind of effort, complete with more little victories to be had along the way.
What about you? Does that describe your own successes? How are you planting your small flags? What do you find discouraging?
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Freedom
Freedom
Kahlil Gibram: The Prophet
for you can only be free when even the desire of seeking freedom becomes a harness to you, and when you cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfillment.
You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief,
But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound.
And how shall you rise beyond your days and nights unless you break the chains which you at the dawn of your understanding have fastened around your noon hour?
In truth that which you call freedom is the strongest of these chains, though its links glitter in the sun and dazzle the eyes.
And what is it but fragments of your own self you would discard that you may become free?
.......................
And if it is a care you would cast off, that care has been chosen by you rather than imposed upon you.
And if it is a fear you would dispel, the seat of that fear is in your heart and not in the hand of the feared.
Verily all things move within your being in constant half embrace, the desired and the dreaded, the repugnant and the cherished, the pursued and that which you would escape.
These things move within you as lights and shadows in pairs that cling.
And when the shadow fades and is no more, the light that lingers becomes a shadow to another light.
And thus your freedom when it loses its fetters becomes itself the fetter of a greater freedom.
Kahlil Gibram: The Prophet
for you can only be free when even the desire of seeking freedom becomes a harness to you, and when you cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfillment.
You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief,
But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound.
And how shall you rise beyond your days and nights unless you break the chains which you at the dawn of your understanding have fastened around your noon hour?
In truth that which you call freedom is the strongest of these chains, though its links glitter in the sun and dazzle the eyes.
And what is it but fragments of your own self you would discard that you may become free?
.......................
And if it is a care you would cast off, that care has been chosen by you rather than imposed upon you.
And if it is a fear you would dispel, the seat of that fear is in your heart and not in the hand of the feared.
Verily all things move within your being in constant half embrace, the desired and the dreaded, the repugnant and the cherished, the pursued and that which you would escape.
These things move within you as lights and shadows in pairs that cling.
And when the shadow fades and is no more, the light that lingers becomes a shadow to another light.
And thus your freedom when it loses its fetters becomes itself the fetter of a greater freedom.
Farewell to the Loved
Kahlil Gibram: The Prophet
The year is ended, and it only adds to my age;
Spring has come, but I must take leave of my home.
Alas, that the trees in this eastern garden,
Without me, will still bear flowers.
Su Ting (670-727)
..........................................the wind bids me leave you.
Less hasty am I than the wind, yet I must go.
We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way, begin no day where we have ended another day; and no sunrise finds us where sunset left us.
Even while the earth sleeps we travel.
We are the seeds of the tenacious plant, and it is in our ripeness and our fullness of heart that we are given to the wind and are scattered.
Brief were my days among you, and briefer still the words I have spoken.
But should my voice fade in your ears, and my love vanish in your memory, then I will come again,
And with a richer heart and lips more yielding to the spirit will I speak.
Yea, I shall return with the tide,
And though death may hide me, and the greater silence enfold me, yet again will I seek your understanding.
And not in vain will I seek.
If aught I have said is truth, that truth shall reveal itself in a clearer voice, and in words more kin to your thoughts.
I go with the wind,...........but not down into emptiness;
I built my cottage among the habitations of men
abtec
http://www.chinapage.com/poem2e.html
I built my cottage among the habitations of men,
And yet there is no clamor of carriages and horses.
You ask: "Sir, how can this be done?"
"A heart that is distant creates its own solitude."
I pluck chrysanthemums under the eastern hedge,
Then gaze afar towards the southern hills.
The mountain air is fresh at the dusk of day;
The flying birds in flocks return.
In these things there lies a deep meaning;
I want to tell it, but have forgotten the words.
Tr. Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping
More Tao YuanMing in Chinese
http://www.chinapage.com/poem2e.html
I built my cottage among the habitations of men,
And yet there is no clamor of carriages and horses.
You ask: "Sir, how can this be done?"
"A heart that is distant creates its own solitude."
I pluck chrysanthemums under the eastern hedge,
Then gaze afar towards the southern hills.
The mountain air is fresh at the dusk of day;
The flying birds in flocks return.
In these things there lies a deep meaning;
I want to tell it, but have forgotten the words.
Tr. Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping
More Tao YuanMing in Chinese
Whispers
Whispers
Dinest Vora
Whispers
Dinesh Vora
The man whispered, "God, speak to me"
and a meadowlark sang.
But, the man did not hear.
So the man yelled, "God, speak to me"
and the thunder rolled across the sky.
But, the man did not listen.
The man looked around and said,
"God let me see you."
And a star shined brightly.
But the man did not see.
And, the man shouted,
"God show me a miracle."
And, a life was born.
But, the man did not notice.
So, the man cried out in despair,
"Touch me God, and let me know you are here."
Whereupon, God reached down and touched the man.
But, the man brushed the butterfly away ...
and walked on.
Dinest Vora
Whispers
Dinesh Vora
The man whispered, "God, speak to me"
and a meadowlark sang.
But, the man did not hear.
So the man yelled, "God, speak to me"
and the thunder rolled across the sky.
But, the man did not listen.
The man looked around and said,
"God let me see you."
And a star shined brightly.
But the man did not see.
And, the man shouted,
"God show me a miracle."
And, a life was born.
But, the man did not notice.
So, the man cried out in despair,
"Touch me God, and let me know you are here."
Whereupon, God reached down and touched the man.
But, the man brushed the butterfly away ...
and walked on.
Love gives naught but itself
Love: Kahlil Gibram: The Prophet
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.
When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, I am in the heart of God."
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.
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