Mindconnection eNL, 2011-11-06

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Good News | Product Highlight | Brainpower | Finances | Security | Health/Fitness | Factoid | Thought 4 the Day

How does it feel to have that extra hour of daylight that should not have been squandered in the first place? Think of the energy savings, too. Those of you who live in sane parts of the country (e.g., Arizona) relative to this very, very bad public policy are spared this stupidity. The rest of us suffer the jet lag effects of clock changes plus the loss of an hour daylight each morning for most of the year.

Now would be a good time to write to your misrepresentative in CONgress and propose a novel concept: Daylight SAVINGS Time. To keep with the federal govt's tradition of naming everything in a way that connotes the opposite of what it does, they could call it Daylight Squandering Time because it will save an hour of daylight each year. What we do is move the clocks back an hour.

But instead of inflicting three weeks of jet lag twice a year (with the corresponding spikes in automobile accidents and industrial injuries--facts you can easily look up), we just leave the clocks alone. This would give you TWO additional hours of daylight in the summer instead of providing daylight when you are already in bed and forcing you to turn lights on in the AM.

Granted, doing something that actually benefits the peasants or the country is anathema to CONgress. But that doesn't mean we should remain silent. Tell those morons to end this stupidity, rather than screw up our clocks this coming spring.

Take pictures with your sunglasses. Even in the bright sun of the Swiss Alps, the polarized lenses of the Ectaco iTRAVL Sunglasses allow you to take pictures of anything using a wireless remote, store it in the sunglasses, and transfer via USB to your PC after the trip.

James Bond and Sidney Bristow, move over.

These sell for $99, but you will get a $20 rebate simply by replying to your receipt (which the shopping cart e-mails to you) and asking for it.

So, your price is $79.

Sounds like a great idea for holiday giving, does it not?

The average time between when critical equipment went down and when a maintenance tech arrived was about three days. Then it took another day to fix because the responding tech typically was the wrong one for that particular problem and rather than admit that, he'd flail away.

Four months after hiring a certain manager over plant maintenance, a tech showed up in less than three minutes and the average downtime was less than an hour. Any time a tech found something unfamiliar, he was rewarded for asking for help. No embarrassment, but praise.

But to go from three days to 30 minutes? How did this manager make such a genius breakthrough? This manager sorted out what really mattered and then figured out how to apply limited resources to what most mattered. To the exclusion of the unimportant.

The previous mode was to try to do all work better and faster, and juggle every possible ball in the air. But that didn't make a difference in terms of high value product going out the door. So all that effort was pretty much pointless.

This manager previously taken manufacturing from low performance to high performance, so already had a system for doing it again. He knew what had to be done, because he asked the production managers to tell him what products were the most important to keep making. Once he had that information, he proceeded on that basis.

The results were stunning, as noted previously. Do you think the results made this manager look smart? You betcha. And all the way into the executive suites in the corporate offices. Now, you may be wondering how I know about this particular case. I was the manager who made the changes.

You can apply this same principle to just about any endeavor. Focus on what matters. Do not be distracted, derailed, or deterred by side issues, non-issues, crybabies, low priorities, or anything else. What matters is what matters. Everything else is just a diversion of limited resources.

When you figure out what to do and proceed strategically, you are then applying brains instead of brawn to a problem.

Coming up with a reason to use CFL at all is increasingly hard to do. Why? For commercial and industrial, it typically makes more sense to upgrade the whole lighting scheme than to do a partial job ala CFLs.

In residential applications, the CFL typically isn’t on for a long enough time to recoup the energy wasted in turning it on versus just running the incandescent it replaces. And its extremely low power factor (typically around 50%) affects other connected loads. Light quality, or lack thereof, is another drawback.

Those who believe the CFL is just a bad idea for the home can now point to:

However, the LED lamp is quite a different story. It lacks all of these drawbacks of the CFL, though it’s midway between the CFL and incandescent in power factor. If you break it, the EPA won’t force you to seal your home in plastic.

For the typical home, however, the solution to lighting-based energy waste isn't new technology. It's the habit of turning lights off when you leave the room.

Some energy-wasting behaviors to put a lid on:

• Standing there with the door open, when a door to door sales person calls on you. Solution: Invite the person in, or go outside. If neither is acceptable, just holler through the door that you are not interested.
   
• Standing in front of the refrigerator with the door open, or worse, walking off while it's left open. This scenario is as common in today's movies as the one where the driver of a car is engrossed in a conversation and is looking at the passenger instead of the road. Solution: Know what you're getting, then get it and close the door.
   
• Running the tap to get hot water, when cold water will do. Solution: Plan your hot water usage similar to planning your car trips. Or just use cold water.
   
• Taking hot, steamy showers. Another movie madness thing. The water should be warm enough that you're not chilled. But if does not need to be hot. That not only wastes energy, it dries out your skin.
   
• Leaving the television on.  Many households have the brainwashing machine on all the time. Not only does this waste energy, but it exposes the human mind to a non-stop barrage of brainwashing. Solution: Eliminate the brainwashing machine, outright. Not only do you save money, you protect your mind.

I've listed only a few things, here. In most households, these aren't done. Replacing incandescent lamps with CFLs will not reduce electrical consumption in the typical household. But following the steps I've just outlined will reduce it dramatically.

• Under the illegal antiPatriot Act, any govt agent can raid your trash and sell the info, steal your identity, or use the info against you.
• Non-government criminals often comb the trash, picking up key bits of security information such as names, addresses, account numbers, and anything that might reveal a password.
• People can learn quite a bit about you, and use it against you, simply by monitoring your trash and building a data file on you.

What can you do? Buy a high quality shredder and use it. The one at right is ideal.

And it's on sale now: More Info
 

• Bank statements.
• Cash advance checks (the kind c/c companies send out; another person can start using these if you just toss them in the trash, and you are on the hook for the funds).
• Church bulletins (they contain info about people who know you).
• Credit card applications, even if you never fill them out.
• Diaries and journals (disassemble, then shred).
• Drivers license, when expired (huge, huge security risk to just toss this photo ID).
• Insurance papers.
• Mailing labels.
• Medical records of any sort.
• Packing slips from items you have delivered.
• Pay stubs, regardless of age (they can start a trail).
• Personal letters.
• Phone bills.
• Photos of you, family members, or friends.
• Receipts of any kind (scan and save, then shred).
• Tax records.
• Utility statements.
• Work-related information.

What you don't need to shred:

• Generic sales letters.
• Political ads.
• Recipes.

Why is this?

The idea behind these drugs was they'd suppress the body's enzyme that breaks bone down. You see, your body maintains bone by breaking it down and then building it back up.

The problem with this approach is when the break down enzyme isn't present, the body doesn't produce the build enzyme. So you get a net loss of bone.

Age 50.

Why is this allowed?

People who believe in the Easter Bunny might also believe that, by some stretch of the imagination, the FDA protects us by regulating food and drugs. That simply does not happen. There is far too much money at stake. These harmful, bone-destroying drugs will continue to be on the market for the foreseeable future.

What should you do?

First, ask the doctor exactly how the drug works. You probably won't get a factual answer, but write it down anyhow. The doctor typically knows only what propaganda the drug rep has spewed. Ask the doctor to provide positive confirmation that this drug does not suppress the body's bone dissolving enzyme. Any drug that does this causes further osteoporosis. Yes, actually causes it. And your doctor is probably completely without a clue that this is the case. Ask for a drug that does not do this, and get written confirmation before putting it into your body.

Next, look at controllable causes of osteoporosis. There are two primary causes:

1. Lack of testosterone-boosting exercise. To fix this problem, do weight-bearing exercise like squats or, if you are physically weak, walking up stairs or very steep hills.
2. Hostile diet. Ingesting ANY corn syrup or fruit juices causes endocrine modification that is very pro bone loss.

Reduce grains to be a very small part of your diet. Eliminate table sugar, sweetened beverages (including artificial sweeteners), and sweet corn (sugar content is outrageous). Limit wheat-based products to very small quantities.

At www.supplecity.com, you'll find plenty of informative, authoritative articles on maintaining a lean, strong physique. It has nothing to do with long workouts or impossible to maintain diets. In fact:

• The best workouts are short and intense.
• A good diet contains far more flavors and satisfaction than the typical American diet.