Tiger Woods Protected Under Veil of Secrecy

Since infancy, Tiger Woods life has been shrouded by a veil of secrecy. Tiger has all the earmarks of a classic Black Manchurian Candidate. He had been sheltered within an artificially contrived environment at Stanford University, the handmaiden of the military-industrial-medical-congressional complex, while he cloned his skills on the way to becoming the (NOW) New World Order’s greatness programmed golfer. According to research, most Black Manchurian Candidates are individuals with created dissociative identity disorders that fall within the following five criteria:

1. Dissociate identity disorder created deliberately. Candidate usual has had contact with OSS, CIA, BLUEBIRD, ARTICHOKE, MK-ULTRA controllers or institutions or Military intelligence controllers or institutions, and prisons. Candidate’s contact may have been created through bloodlines, military recruitment, enlistment, imprisonment, or civilian employee of military institutions.

2. A new identity is implanted which includes multiple personalities. Candidate has sudden appearance of an unknown operative personality, or new behavior involving senseless and uncharacteristic violence.

3. Amnesia barriers are created. Candidate has had memory loss proximate, and during a specific operation.

4. Used in simulated or actual operations. Candidate carried out an operative or assassination, and killing(s) may have occurred during or close to national or state elections, or involved political, religious groups or figures.

5. Disposal after operation.  Candidate is killed or has had judge, or severely compromised jury trial, or guilty pleaded, declared insane or found suitable for commitment to mental institution, confined to solitary confinement in state or federal prison with restricted visitation with little or no access to inmate populations.

The Black Manchurian Candidate Criteria was expanded from the groundbreaking work of Colin A. Ross, M.D. in the operational use of multiple personality disorders by U.S. military and intelligence agencies.[1]  So far Tiger Woods has substantially met at least 4 of 5 criterions for a Black Manchurian Candidate. 

Criterion No. 1 Bloodline Connection & MK ULTRA Institutions

Bryon Bell, Setup Man & Keeper of the Tiger's Secrets

Tiger shroud of secrecy has been veiled by a small knot of tight-lipped friends. Tiger’s endless supplies of blond blue-eyed maidens came through his so-called best friend from Western High School in Anaheim, Bryon Bell. Bell is the president of Tiger Woods Design. Bell is always discreet about Tiger. Bell tells no tales. He does no public interviews.

Tigers’ half-blood siblings are afraid to say anything about him or Earl. Even Tida Woods is committed to silence about Tiger. Earl while he was alive like a good military intelligence officer that he was held Tiger’s secrets and did no talking. Earl, Tiger and his camp had a reputation for severing relationships with anyone that talks. [2] Why?

Earl Woods, Old Schoool Military Intelligence Operative

Tiger Wood’s father, Earl Woods, served two full tours of duty in the Vietnam War, the second as part of the elite United States Army Special Forces Green Berets. The Green Berets were trained and developed by Hitler’s Commando, Obersturmbannführer SS (Lieutenant Colonel) Otto Skorzeny’s Paladin Group. [3]

Reichsfuehrer Heinrich Himmler's SS Insignias

Earl Woods was a U.S. Defense Department Information School graduate. Near the end of his active duty career, Lt. Col. Woods was Professor of Military Science & Tactics, (Army ROTC) at the City College of New York.

In 1961, Woods was in Korea, and next year sent to Vietnam as a military advisor. President John F. Kennedy had vowed to withdraw U.S. military advisors from Vietnam just prior to his assassination in 1963.

Back in the US in 1966 in the march to escalate of the war in Vietnam, he volunteered for the Green Berets, an elite special force, and was appointed Special Services (CIA) Officer in Bangkok, Thailand in charge of organizing recreation for the troops as a cover.

U.S. Special Forces Insignias Copied from Obersturmbannfuhrer Otto Skorzeny's SS Special Forces

In August 1966, the CIA was setting up a huge interrogation-torture center in Udorn, Thailand as part of its counterinsurgency plans. Earl Woods met Kultida “Tida” Woods in Bangkok. “Tida” has Thai, Chinese, and Dutch ancestry. Undoubtedly, Tida was also working with the CIA when they met. Earl and Tida married on or around July 11, 1969 in Brooklyn, New York.

In 1970, Woods returned to Vietnam as part of the CIA Phoenix Assassination Program, where he became an assistant to a South Vietnamese Army officer, Colonel Phong. They fought together in many tight spots, and Phong more than once saved his life. Woods was so impressed by his friend that he called him “Tiger”.

In March 1974, Earl Woods retired as lieutenant-colonel. Woods then obtained a job in California with Arrowhead Products, and later McDonnell Douglas, one of the largest U.S. military intelligence contractors and part of the shadow government of America.

On December 30, 1975, Tida bore Earl Woods’ fourth child, Eldrick “Tiger” Woods, as a bloodline to SS Skorzeny’s trained U.S. Army Special Forces Command; and McDonnell Douglas.

The nickname, “Tiger”, came from Earl Woods’ friendship with Colonel Vuong Dang “Tiger” Phong, of the South Vietnamese Army above. At sometime, Earl Woods moved to Cypress, Orange County – a white neighborhood – because it was five minutes away from a naval golf course. The golf course is at Seal Beach Naval Weapons Base along the Pacific Ocean. It is a strange place to relocate just to play golf.

Seal Beach Weapons station is rumored to be attached by an underground tunnel to the China Lake Naval Air Weapons Base also on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. One of the most heavily identified trauma based mind control centers by children is located at China Lake. Hauptsturmführer-SS  (Captain) Dr. Josef Mengele, Angel of Death, is also alleged to have worked out of China Lake on mind control programs for the U.S. government under Project Paperclip. [4]

Earl Woods dedicated his son to Nazi racial science as a MK ULTRA bloodline medical experiment. Tiger’s programmers had vowed to turn Tiger into an extraordinary human clone. In Tiger’s infancy, Earl Woods had already proclaimed him as a gift to the world on a par with Gandhi and Nelson Mandela.

From a child with Seal Beach and China Lake Naval Air Weapons Base as a backdrop, Tiger had been raised in highly structured artificially contrived environment in the shadow of the U.S.Army Special Operations Command. According to the Defense Press Service, As late as 2004, Tiger was continually involved in some type of special operation’s training and programming at Pope Air Force Base in North Carolina home to the Joint Special Operations Command and Delta Force soldiers and SEALs.

Earl Woods said his son learned on the sniper course at Fort Bragg something that could have a direct impact on his golf game: that his left eye is his dominant eye. This, he said, will help his son with his “plumbing” on the course to determine where the ball will go.

Earl Woods said he used his military training to instill in Tiger the discipline and focus that has turned him into a world-renowned golfer. Woods said his son “was always inquisitive about the training I put him through,” particularly the “mental-toughness training,” and “wanted to know where that came from.” [5]

Earl Woods had helped mold Tiger into some type of U.S. Army experimental bloodline mind controlled clone that would be medically transformed into a multiple personality New World Order world class athlete or an assassin.

Criterion No. 2: Tiger Woods Developed Big Black Brute Operative Personality Obsessed with Blond Blue-Eyed Maidens

Prior to the public drama of the weekend of Thanksgiving 2009, Woods had an impeccable squeaky clean international image. In lieu of the magnitude of scandalous and outlandish revelations of the secret world of Tiger and his blond blue-eyed maidens, Woods’ image appeared to have been carefully manufactured, crafted and protected to benefit some future NWO agenda.

Tiger’s Blond Blue-Eyed Maidens, a dozen porn stars, cocktail waitresses and a party girl with connections to 9-11, may yet turn out to be an assortment of CIA Monarch mind controlled sex slaves and operatives. [6]

Criterion No. 3: Tiger Woods’ Disassociated States, and Memory Loss Proximate During the Specific Operation to Sensationally Disgrace Himself

In regards to the facts and events surrounding Tiger’s infamous auto accident, a lot of strange and odd things don’t add up or make any sense. Immediately after the car crash, a neighbor reported that Tiger was barefoot, asleep and snoring on the ground at the car.[7]

Reportedly, Tiger was in and out of consciousness, blinding in and out of a disassociated state. Tiger clearly appeared to be under the influence of something, [8] a post hypnotic state? At the hospital, doctors even had to use a breathing tube to assist Tiger’s respiration, which is odd and extremely strange reaction to a minor traffic accident.[9]

This is not the first time that Woods has suddenly lapsed into an extraordinary and abnormal disassociated “dormant state.” In June 2008, Tiger reportedly fell into a coma after allegedly eating a poisoned Granny Smith apple. [10]

Tiger’s wife, Elin Nordegren, was an immigrant and alien of Stockholm, Sweden when they were married. During World War II, Sweden a neutral country nevertheless provided steel to the Nazis war machine. It also allowed the Nazis to use its railways to invade Norway. Nazi Germany also needed Sweden strategically as a neutral country as a conduit for goods and foreign currency. It is not happenstance that after WWII, Sweden became Europe’s richest nation swelled with Nazi flight capital, which still welds a great deal of power and influence in Sweden, and the world.

Nordegren Photographed Inspecting an U.S. Naval Installation & Warship

Nordegren’s immigrant alien status at the time she was arranged to meet Tiger is suspect and unknown. In 2003, she was photographed visiting at an unidentified U.S. Naval base inspecting a warship for some interest.

Additionally, Elin was not a world class model. She was a former swimsuit model. Elin was working as a nanny for Swedish golfer Jesper Bo Parnevik before she was setup to marry the world’s richest and most well known athlete. With the marriage, Nordegren has acquired unprecedented access to world-wide governmental and social inner circles and networks.

Nordegren’s mom is Barbro Holmberg. She was born April 7, 1952 in Stensele, Västerbotten. She is a highly placed influential Swedish Social Democratic politician. On October 10, 2003, she was appointed Minister for Migration and Asylum Policy in the Swedish Government. As a consequence of the change of government following the 2006 government election, she left office on October 6, 2006. Holmberg is the governor of Gävleborg County, Sweden. [11] She has a degree in social work from the Department of Social Work, Stockholm University. [12]

Holmberg began her career in 1976 as a Research Assistant with National Board of Health and Welfare of Sweden. In 1977, she had been an Information Officer for the National Association for Aid to Drug Abusers (RFHL). [13] She is no strangler to clandestine governmental mind control research and development.

Verna Dannborg alleges that she was covertly implanted with mind control research brain electrodes by Swedish Cybergod Professor Torg Skoog of the National Board of Health and Welfare of Sweden. [14]

Has Tiger Woods’ brain been implanted with a similar experimental electrodes or micro chips which would explains the veil of secrecy surrounding him, and his sudden lapses into disassociated trances and states that causes him to even not recall how to breathe.  

Criterion No. 4: Tiger Used in Simulated Clandestine False Flag Operation (Operation Northwoods) to Polarize the Races

According to a source circulating at the Kremlin, it stated that the CIA ordered the  sensational ‘takedown’ of Tiger Woods in an effort to greater fuel their efforts to ignite a race war that the military industrial complex believe is needed in order to socially re-engineer the United States as it nears total economic collapse. [15]

According to the source, the reason behind the CIA’s targeting of Tiger Woods is the ‘deliberate demoralization’ of Americas black race population by the destruction and neutralization of one of their most esteemed idols by the racially stereotyped depiction of Tiger as an ‘out of control’ and ‘oversexed’ negro man unable to assimilate among whites. [16]

The report further stated that the ‘main target’ behind the media destruction of Woods is President Obama, whom the CIA has calculated will suffer increasing alienation from his Nations white population. Mixed raced Obama and Woods are viewed as the two most popular among Black people and the takedown of Tiger for has out of control sexual affairs with numerous Blond Blue-eyed maidens reinforce white Americans belief that ‘black men just can’t control themselves’. [17]

However, Tiger may have been intentionally triggered to implode to terminate Elin Nordegren’s secret spy information gathering operation on Wood’s secret military intelligence mind control programming.

Criterion No. 5: Disposal after Operation

Elin Nordegen, , and Barbro Holmberg are all foreign nationals. Nordegen was used as a honey-pot asset deliberately setup with Tiger. A honey-pot is a term used to describe an intelligence agency operative (usually opposite sex but could be same sex) who is used to sexually attract and then ensnare a predetermined targeted individual into an affair in order to gain information, and or to lure the target in a way that he or she could be set-up, framed, arrested or assassinated. [18]

Nordegen’s mission had been either to gather military intelligence information as a spy for a foreign concern on Tiger’s secret mind control project or monitor, supervise and oversee Tiger until he was setup to be triggered by the military industrial complex to mentally implode into an international scandal to demoralize people of color; and sensationally exposed him as a stereotypical out of control sexual deviant Big Black Brute.

There will be no reconciliation of the marriage. If everything goes as projected, at least half of Tiger’s acquired wealth is subject to become a national asset of Sweden.

One of Tiger’s acquired friends is D.J. Hanlon. Hanlon is the son of David P. Hanlon, President of the Rio Hotel/Casino of Las Vegas. He was also connected with Merv Griffin Resorts. Merv Griffin Resorts of Atlantic City, New Jersey took over Resorts International, Inc. that had substantial ties and connections with the Iran-Contra/Cocaine Affair William J. Casey, Director of the CIA [19]

Among his many interests, Hanlon is also the director of RemoteMDX, Inc. The company develops, markets, and sells wireless monitoring equipment and services to law enforcement and bail bond agencies. Its primary product is TrackerPAL — tracking devices worn on the ankle to monitor the whereabouts of criminals on parole or probation. Using global positioning system and cellular technology, the device features two-way voice communications, alarms, and Web-based location tracking in real time. RemoteMDx’s SecureAlert subsidiary provides monitoring services. The company electronically monitors some 12,700 offenders. [20]

RemoteMDX is eerily similar to the governmental monitoring objectives of people of color once advanced by Dr. Louis Jolyon West’s Center for the Study and Reduction of Violence. [21]

Currently, Woods is surrounded by his shroud of close friends. He has reverted into some sort of infantile disassociate state and spends most his time watching cartoons and eating cereal until he is rewired and reprogrammed with a NWO agenda chip. [22]

Is it so hard to believe that Tiger Woods had been a secret MK ULTRA “racial matters” experimental super athlete manufactured by the U.S. Army Joint Chiefs of Staff, and then imploded as a continuation of the Northwoods Project to foment national racial discord as a veil to cover-up Nordegren’s successful spy penetration and infiltration?   I don’t think so!

[2] Sounes, Howard, The Wicked Game: Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, and the Business of Modern Golf, William Morrow & Co, (2004) New York, NY, pg. 216

[3] Lee, Martin A. (1999). The Beast Reawakens: Fascism’s Resurgence from Hitler’s Spymasters to Today’s Neo-Nazi Groups and Right-Wing Extremists. Taylor & Francis. pp. 186

[4] http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/mind_control_cults.htm

[5] http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=26854

[6] http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_mindcon02.htm

[7] http://sports.espn.go.com/golf/news/story?id=4712889&campaign=rss&source=ESPNHeadlines

[8] http://www.tmz.com/2009/12/08/tiger-woods-hospital-overdose/

[9] Id.

[10] http://thesportsculture.com/2008/06/26/tiger-woods-is-in-a-coma-after-eating-poisoned-apple/

[11] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbro_Holmberg

[12] Id.

[13] Id.

[14]http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:rU4MPXHoqGMJ:www.lambros.name/CYBERGODS.pdf+%22vera+dannborg%22&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

[15] http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1307.htm

[16] Id.

[17] Id.

[18] http://www.rense.com/general69/webb1b.htm

[19] http://www.ctka.net/abc_cap.html

[20] http://www.answers.com/topic/remotemdx-inc

[21] http://www.english.ucla.edu/ucla1960s/7274/Max/nagano4.htm

[22]http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/tiger_lonely_days_of_cereal_toons_OALLTQANs7SBAEZbzE67kL

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Slowing down a bit for the holidays

1. Spoke with BJ Fogg at Stanford University about quantitative analysis of different peace-building efforts.  BJ kindly offered to think of web development people he can connect me with, if I would e-mail him a job description, which I did
2. Received proposal acknowledgment e-mail from Jenece of the Draper Richards Foundation with several follow-up questions, which I answered in my reply

Monday, December 21, 2009

1. Continued to code and analyze survey data
2. Evis (friend from London) told me about BJ Fogg and the Peace Innovation project at Stanford. I got in touch with him and scheduled an appointment to chat over our respective peace projects
3. Emailed Leila Taylor, Principal at Wayne County Workshop about her friend, a web developer
4. Spoke with Ella, a linguist who e-mailed me about becoming a board member. I asked her to please e-mail me the terms we discussed over the phone and her bio/CV
5. Heard back from Laura, of the City Bar Justice Center, who told me that she and her colleague are waiting for feedback from the Center’s Executive Director, who will be back during the first week of January
6. Spoke with Marjorie A. Meyers, Federal Public Defender of the Southern District of Texas about Crystal’s (law student from Univ of Texas) work with them
7. I discussed research of board structure for non-profit startups and the drafting of the Foundation’s bylaws with Crystal. She told me she’d be happy to take it on and that it should be done by January 10th
8. Stephen Brooks of Charitable Partnership Fund emailed me CPF’s bylaws as a reference–thank you, Steve!
9. Asked Tomaas, a photographer friend of Lillian’s (friend in NYC) about the availability of his web developer. Tomaas said he would make the introductions

Barry Bonds and Tiger Woods, what a waste of talent…Heal thyself; use steroids for a quicker recovery in the physical sense.  What about attitude and the edginess that comes along with the over use of said healing agents? 

Tiger was a long, lean, golfing  machine who became a rather bulky, pussy chasing, schmuck who could play great gold.  I have to admit he was nicer to watch then John Daly, but what the phuque was Mr. Stanford University Man doing?  Tiger, in my book of revelations has succumbed to his own hero-worshiping status. (Did he graduate from Stanford?)

Enough said, heal thyself  Tiger, we will see you in the next life.

Much of what I work on involves technologies which address information security and cyber security. So I have to ask, Who is training our next generation of technologists? And are those educators doing enough to focus on the dynamically changing demands of Information Security?

Those fundamental questions took me to Chicago recently, to take part in a roundtable discussion sponsored by DeVry University, “The Demand for Information Security in a Connected World.”

The roundtable was convened to address “today’s digital world and the emerging threats in a world where information is instantly accessible, and the demand for talent in this growing career field.” I joined Peter Walts, CEO of Centropy; Michael Davis, Author of Hacking Exposed and also CEO of Savid Technologies, and John Giancola, Dean of the College of Engineering and Information Sciences at DeVry University.

The roundtable was filmed, and several five-minute segments have also been produced from the day’s discussion. Here’s the introductory short film with excerpts about the topic:

All of the video segments and other information are available at this link. I particularly like the piece on “The Value of Education.”

Government’s Role in Supporting Technical Education

Just last week the National Governors Association released a report from its Center for Best Practices, addressing the practical and “increasing necessity for students to obtain a college degree or certificate.” The issue brief, Increasing College Success: A Road Map for Governors, outlines actions governors can take to increase U.S. college completion rates, and also specifically focused on the success rate of “programs of study that integrate career and technical education with academic coursework and that are linked to a two-year college degree or certificate program.” Some coverage of their report is here: “Career Colleges Offer Model.”

The nation’s governors focus on the issue out of necessity, because we’re not turning out enough students from our high schools with a solid grounding in science, technology, engineering, math (STEM), or technical competencies needed for the nation’s competitiveness.  And it’s not good for our students themselves!

DeVry University is an example of the kind of program the NGA Center for Best Practices found so successful and worthy of emulation, in a world where their findings hold “a college degree has become the gateway to the middle class. Nearly 75 percent of future jobs will require a postsecondary degree or certificate.” 

Don’t kid yourself about the numbers involved here.  DeVry announced last week (“DeVry Fall Undergrad Enrollment Accelerates“) that its 2009 enrollments rose 22.7 percent to 64,003 across the country. They operate in 90 locations across 26 states. Last year they saw a 16.9 percent jump as well, with the recession’s weak labor market driving students to get more schooling – particularly in the technical fields more in demand today.  (You can find more information about DeVry’s degree programs and study courses, as well as career opportunities in the Information Security field at www.devry.edu/security.)

The network of private or for-profit career colleges like DeVry – turning out tens of thousands of trained technologists in Information Security and other vital fields every year – can actually boast of several advantages, according to the National Governors Association report:

“Publicly funded community colleges also have a lot to learn from private two-year colleges about providing support. Private two-year colleges have much higher graduation rates, especially for African American and Hispanic students [Emphasis added]. What do these colleges, which tend to have an occupational focus, do differently? The private two-year colleges recognize they have nontraditional students who may not always have well-developed plans and who may lack the motivation and organizational skills needed to earn a degree. As a result, these institutions structure their support for students differently than public two-year colleges by providing:

• A clear pathway to each program’s goal and a clear timeframe;
• Information systems to track progress closely, which then is used to guide students’ choices;
• Mandatory advising and peer cohorts that meet regularly; and
• Active job placement assistance.
        National Governors Association, Center for Best Practices,       “Increasing College Success: Roadmap for Governors” December 2009

As we head into a new decade, thoughts inevitably turn to the future. Across all the areas of activity in which government and technology influence our future course – from national or homeland security, energy policy, social welfare, health care and so on – I would argue that the most pivotal realm of activity for future payoff is education. We’ll need the solid contributions of the DeVrys of the world and their peers representing the nation’s system of “career colleges,” and every other segment of higher-education. 

I had a varied path through education – undergrad degree from Thomas Jefferson’s public-by-design university in Charlottesville, followed by grad school at a hideously expensive private university (thank goodness for my free-ride fellowship).  I spent my teenage years before that in European high schools, where I saw the value of tracked education and a strong network of technical/vocational higher education opportunities. Many of my classmates then intended not to go to a liberal arts college, but to a technical institute or vocational/technical school, to “learn electronics” as we said in the late ’70s.

I also have worked alongside graduates from technical career colleges during my years in the technology industry – and have now watched as Microsoft and its competitors fight among themselves for talented college graduates nationwide from the widest spectrum of college backgrounds. Our industry, our nation, and the world all need to support and reward a menu of higher technical education choices.

If you’d like to read more about the role of career colleges (or “market-funded” schools as they’re sometimes called) in providing a critical platform of technology professionals, see the debate in the Inside Higher Ed report of a research conference sponsored by the University of Southern California, University of Phoenix, and the Lumina Foundation for Education, which brought together leaders and researchers from every kind of university and college system. DeVry’s CEO received support there for his call for “a new level of cooperation among our institutions — a new day” centered on research about which educational approaches work best for which populations of students. By the way, I’m happy to point out that folks from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation took part in that conference. 

“It’s no secret the U.S. education system is failing, [so] we’re doing all kinds of experiments that are different.”  Bill Gates 

The Gates Foundation provides some $200 million a year on grants to elementary and secondary education, and I know they care deeply about the opportunities for those students in the post-secondary realm. Let me know what you think about the subject.

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Let’s face it: We’re all guilty of multitasking. And the madness has to stop.

Come on, be honest. How many of us can refrain from incessantly checking our BlackBerry while attending an important webinar? When chatting with a client on the telephone about moving the sales cycle forward, are you simultaneously perusing the box scores on ESPN.com or watching a snippet of “The Simpsons” on YouTube? Never mind that with this kind of behavior the clock becomes your enemy. The real crime is the lack of retention that defines multitasking.

For sales reps, in which time is of the essence, multitasking can be a killer on productivity. “If you set aside from 10:00 to 11:00 for sales calls, how much of that time is really devoted to making sales calls and how much of that time is taken up by little things and interruptions?” said Alison Kero, founder and president of Gotham Concierge, which provides time-management services.

Kero added that multitasking lends itself to a kind of vocational apathy. “If you’re doing three things at once, you’re not really putting in the effort to any one activity, so you stop caring about all three,” she said.

People who are regularly bombarded with several streams of electronic information do not pay attention, control their memory or switch from one job to another as well as those who prefer to complete one task at a time, according to a recent study conducted by Stanford University. (“They’re suckers for irrelevancy,” said communication Professor Clifford Nass in the study, referring to heavy multitaskers. “Everything distracts them.” Less is truly more.)

Part of the problem for sales reps is “too many systems” devoted to data management, according to Drew Stevens, president of Stevens Consulting Group, whose clients include AT &T, Merrill Lynch and Reliv International. Stevens said he thinks that ‘CRM’ should stand for “crappy reporting management.”

“There are too many [technology] tools killing the one tool sales execs ought to be doing, which is getting out in the field and in front of the client,” Stevens said. “With customer-to-customer influences being more important, a seller’s butt needs to be building relationships, not keypunching data for executives.”

Kero amplified those comments. She said that at least 50% of sales is about building relationships, and the foundations are increasingly threatened by multitasking. “If you’re not in the here and now with the client, and not paying close attention, relationships will go down the well. Who wants to do business with someone who [a prospect] thinks doesn’t care about him.”

If used correctly, social media (Facebook, Digg, Twitter, YouTube) can be a legitimate sales and marketing vehicle for new customers. But people have to be mindful of the more insidious aspects of social media, which can be time stealers.

“It’s sad that you have to tell someone  [during the work day] not to update their Facebook page every ten minutes,” Kero said. “I don’t think most companies have recognized yet that multitasking is counterproductive, and so they’ve probably been pressuring people to manage more than one task at once.  However, companies are going to have to acknowledge this fact and make changes to their policies to reflect that doing one thing at a time , and doing it well, is the best practice to yield positive and productive results.” 

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It is possible to image the brain of a single fruit fly, but how about 100? This is what, MBF Bioscience Customer and Assistant Professor of Biology at Stanford University, Mark Schnitzer, would like to do.

In an interview published in the October 16 issue of Science, Schnitzer explained that “massive brain imaging” would revolutionize brain research by allowing neuroscientists to simultaneously study multiple flies of the same genetic strain to get a clearer picture of the differences in individual brain function. “If it really is possible to look at 100 flies in parallel it will open up questions that can’t be addressed today because the experiments are simply too prohibitive,” he said.

Read the full interview at sciencemag.org.

{Image courtesy of Stanford.edu}

More Americans believe steps taken to reduce global warming pollution will help the US economy than say such measures will hurt it. That says a survey which was conducted by the Associated Press and Stanford University, the dates between November 17 and November 29, 2009.

40 percent of the 1005 adult respondents said U.S. action to slow global warming in the future would create jobs. Slightly more, 46 percent said it would boost the economy.

Less than a third said curbing climate change would hurt the economy and result in fewer jobs.

The survey’s results show that a big percentage of the American population has faith in President Barack Obama’s economic arguments and efforts for limiting heat-trapping gases and curb global warming.

Nevertheless, the poll also suggests that Americans have limits to how much they want to pay to address global warming. Three-quarters of respondents said they support action of some kind on climate change, but just as many said they would oppose the cap-and-trade system if it raised their electricity bill by $25 a month. A majority — 59 percent — wouldn’t support cap-and-trade if it meant paying $10 extra a month for electricity.

Sources and further information: AP via Yahoo News, AP –Stanford University Environmental Poll

I admit it. I like texting. I don’t know if it is the writer in me, the social media maven, mom, or bon vivant, but I am hooked. It took me a while to embrace it, but I have found the direct access to those I care about quite appealing. I can receive a quick text at work when my son gets home from school—or a little casual banter with a flirtatious friend—without the formality a phone conversation entails. I guess it’s part of the “instant,” byte-sized culture we are creating.

So, I suspect that’s why I haven’t stopped thinking about Stanford University professor Andrea Lunsford’s five-year examination of college students’ writing in the Stanford Study of Writing. From 2001 to 2006, she collected 14,672 student writing samples—everything from in-class assignments, formal essays, and journal entries to emails, blog posts, and chat sessions. What she discovered might surprise you. The reality is that the most popular technological tools and social media platforms continue to receive plenty of sanctimonious slander—from Facebook’s narcissistic drivel, to PowerPoint’s bullet-point prose, to Twitter’s unintelligible prattle. But in true train-wreck fashion, we just can’t seem to stop looking.

As many traditional academicians, such as University College of London English professor John Sutherland have moaned, social media and texting are “dehydrating language into bleak, bald, sad shorthand.” However, the new media guard thinks differently. The truth is that communication is evolving and morphing as breakneck speed, and we are right smack in the middle of maelstrom. Granted, it’s hard to achieve the perspective needed to make sense of it all. Professor Lunsford suggests:

“I think we’re in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven’t seen since Greek civilization. Technology isn’t killing our ability to write. It’s reviving it—and pushing our literacy in bold new directions.”

The first thing she found is that young people today write far more than any generation before them. That’s because so much socializing happens online, and it almost always involves text. Moreover, they are writing more than any previous generation, ever—in history. They are immersed in a complex, often confounding, new space where writers and their audiences are now enmeshed. “The consumer has become the producer,” says Professor Clay Shirky. The rules of the game have changed, and communication mores have been literallyturned upside down.

Lunsford pins her findings to the pervasive psycho-sociological trends defining our culture. She says, “More than earlier generations, young people today are aware of the precarious nature of our lives. They understand the dangers that await us. Hence, writing is a way to get a sense of power.” Interestingly, comparing the Stanford students’ writing with their peers from the mid-1980s, Lunsford found that the writing of today’s students is about three times as long today—they have “the ability to generate more prose.” I guess expressing ideas about hard things requires hard words. And when grappling with hard things, “I don’t think it can be worked out in 140 characters,” Lunsford contends. How ironic.

Of all the writing that the Stanford students did, a stunning 38 percent of it took place out of the classroom. Lunsford calls this “life writing.” Those Twitter updates and lists of 25 things about yourself add up. The fact that students today almost always write for an audience—a real switch from the prior generation—gives them a different sense of focus and message impact. It’s almost as if we are narrating our own lives. In interviews, students defined good prose as something that had an effect on the world. For them, writing is about persuading, organizing, and debating. It’s about finding a voice and taking a stand—even if it’s a review of the latest movie.

The Stanford students were almost always less enthusiastic about their in-class writing, because it had no audience but the professor. It didn’t serve any purpose other than to get them a grade. How about texting those LOLs and emoticons? Are they eroding the sanctity of academic writing? When Lunsford examined the work of first-year students, she didn’t find a single example of texting speak in an academic paper.

At the end of the day, texting has it’s time and place. And, there’s the rub. It represents a fascinating dichotomy of communication. It is simultaneously immediate and intimate, yet passive. It finds you any time of the day or night (no matter where you are—except driving, I hope) in the soft, fleshy palm of your hand. But at the same time, it gives you the power to choose when and how you want to respond. To engage or not to engage—the new “text-i-quette.”

Some psychologists warn against this intimate anonymity—that it encourages risky behavior. Elisabeth Wilkins wrote in a blog post that “texting can rob our kids of the ability to interact socially”—diminishing the importance of body language and facial expressions. I think the evolution of email and texting has radically changed the way we communicate and how we express ourselves, but I’m not sure it’s something we can condemn or alter. It simply is. It is the new communications behavior and landscape, which is inextricably intertwined with the technological innovation that enables it.

What do you think of texting and the changing patterns of communication? How are they affecting us as human beings?

Elaine Gantz Wright writes about social media that makes a difference. Contact her at ewright () publishingconcepts.com

I have been so busy, writing, teaching, and setting up classes for next year.

There’s a new schedule for January and February 2010! I’m doing parenting and stress-busting classes at Stanford,  at Menlo Park and Mountain View, and some sensible-diet classes at Menlo Park. The schedule is on THE LATEST! page of this website.

Dr. Yi Cui is a genius.  Learning a little about this modest Materials Science assistant professor from Stanford University gives one an insight to how and why the CleanTech sector is the most relevant in the world, and how significantly our lives can and will change in the near future.

Take a look at some of the more notable developments to come from Dr. Cui’s laboratory in the last two years alone:

1)      Store bought paper can be turned into a battery electrode simply by dipping it into carbon-nanotube inks that Dr. Cui developed. The coated paper and its electrodes, which are highly conductive and folds like all paper does, is now able to be used as a storage device for a variety of applications including portable electronics such as laptops or for grid storage applications. While the idea is not for people to create their own batteries with their home paper, commercial applications of this development would take advantage of the much cheaper input costs.  See video here:

2)      A paper released by Dr. Cui in December, 2007, describing a lab development using silicon nanowires to increase the charge capacity of lithium ion batteries by 10 times. This novel application of nanowires and the corresponding application of the increased storage are remarkable to say the least. It was this paper that gave Dr. Cui the notoriety, awards and funding he has today. See his Stanford website for more on this.

3)      Building on the Dec. 2007 study, a new study released in January 2009 continues forward by demonstrating a Si crystalline-amorphous (c-a) core-shell NW design resulting in significant improvement over power rate and cycling life. This essentially improved the toughness and durability of the electrodes in the original study, giving them higher commercialization applicability. (90% capacity retention over 100 cycles)

4)      Cui improved the efficiency of thin film solar cells by demonstrating that solar cells patterned at the nanoscale with domed structures absorb more light and, as a bonus, are self-cleaning. “These nanodome structures not only repel water, but help trap light. Because they’re so small–about 500 nanometers in diameter–the nanodomes interact with light in a cool way, absorbing 94 percent of all light from the infrared to the ultraviolet. A flat solar cell made from the same materials absorbs only 65 percent of light in the same broad spectrum. So far the overall power conversion efficiency of the cells is 5.9 percent. Dr. Cui says these patterning techniques could be applied to other solar materials. This work is described online in the journal Nano Letters.”

Dr. Cui already has an agreement with investors to commercialize his laboratory work and is currently doing so. It would take days and several other blogs to fully discuss the implications of the 4 developments above, as well as many others not shown here by Dr. Cui. While there are very few people as talented and brilliant as this professor, there are an army of people tackling the issues we discuss regularly on the blog- giving us the bullish and optimistic beliefs we have in the sector. The professor could easily leave Stanford and focus on commercialization of his work however his true passion is teaching- which is why he currently has no plans to leave Stanford University.

I’ll never forget when my parents moved to a small town just after retirement and my father opened up the local paper. Front page news – Man Indicted In Puppy Abuse Case. Now abusing puppies is a horrible, despicable thing. This man ran a puppy mill and the poor animals lived in horrid conditions. But my father had just moved from the murder capital of the world. “Now this is where I want to live, ” he said, “Where the worst you see in the headlines is puppy abuse and everyone is up in arms.”

There are days that I avoid reading the news. I just don’t want to know what’s out there. I remember a journal entry I wrote just after my daughter arrived. I wrote “I haven’t seen the news in days. I haven’t read a newspaper. I saw something on t.v. last night. It seems there’s something huge going on in the Middle East and we’re in the middle of it. But I have no idea what it is and I really don’t care.” To this day I have no idea what I was talking about because the Gulf War had ended.

What I find startling is the fact that as soon as my child arrived I tuned out the world. This is/was so against my nature. I was a news junkie in college. The university I went to was huge. The campus was massive. Many days it made no sense to run back and forth between my apartment and campus between classes. So I went to the library. And because I’m the master at procrastination, instead of doing homework I’d read newspapers. And a lot of ‘em. On any typical day I would read, scan, peruse the school paper (which was a daily), the local paper, two major papers from the largest city in the state and one major paper from out-of-state, usually The New York Times. I loved finding the different takes on world events based on whether the paper was conservative or liberal. I like analyzing why one paper chose to include certain information, why another would leave it out. Who got the best quotes? Which story broke first?

But then children. And three of them. I have little time to scan 5 newspapers a day. But I have the internet! And you wouldn’t believe what’s out there today! C’mon, I’ll show you…..

HIV-Positive Man Injects Sleeping Wife - I’m a deep sleeper. This scares me. Thank goodness my husband doesn’t have HIV.

Bill O’Reilly Outraged By Law & Order Episode - Seriously? This is news? Bill O’Reilly = Conservative. And as much as I don’t like over-the-top, extreme views in a medium that is supposed to be entertainment yes, Law & Order = Liberal.  And Bill O’Reilly is surprised?

Blair: I Would Have Removed Saddam Hussein Anyway - Ok. This isn’t shocking news. It’s just good to see that Blair doesn’t switch rhetoric to appease the climate.

Americans Arrested in Pakistan Had Bright Futures - And in the very first sentence they’re described as “wholesome.” Wholesome? Since when is a jihad wholesome?

Jon Stewart Calls Out Gretchen Carlson For “Dumbing Herself Down” – Good for him. Apparently, she ‘admits’ to googling the words ‘ignormous’ and ‘czar,’ trying to appear as if she’s just another mom trying to make sense of this crazy world. Apparently, she has a degree from Stanford and is a classically trained violinist. First of all, us moms out here? We’re not stupid…OR ignoramouses. Second? Oh forget…I’ve lost interest.

Chinese Man Gets Remote Control Stuck in Bottom After Drunk Prank -  There are even x-rays to prove it! I’m not kidding!

So there you have it. Top stories of the day. And you’ll notice I left out the plethora of Tiger Woods stories still circling. That news was so…….yesterday.

If this becomes market-ready, it’ll blow the walls off size and weight issues with portable devices. One more amazing use for carbon nanotubes.

From the link:

Ordinary paper can be turned into a battery electrode simply by dipping it into carbon-nanotube inks. The resulting electrodes, which are strong, flexible, and highly conductive, might be used to make cheap energy storage devices to power portable electronics.

It’s now possible to print lightweight circuits and screens for electronics like e-readers, but conventional batteries still weigh these devices down. Carbon nanotubes are a promising material for printing batteries because, in addition to their strength, light weight, and conductivity, they can store a large amount of energy–a quality that helps portable electronics run longer between charges.

Now a group of Stanford University researchers, led by materials science professor Yi Cui, have demonstrated that ordinary office paper soaks up carbon nanotubes like a sponge and can be turned into electrodes for batteries and supercapacitors. The advantage of paper, says Cui, is that it’s cheap and interacts strongly with nanotubes without the need for putting additives in the ink. “We take advantage of the porous structure of paper,” says Cui. “Carbon nanotubes absorb into the paper and stick on really tightly.”

      Lila Rose Kaplan’s 100 Planes
     Directed by Meredith McDonough

       About the Writer      Lila Rose’s plays include Wildflower, Bureau of Missing Persons, 100 Planes, Biography of a Constellation, and Catching Flight.   Her work has been produced and developed at Second Stage, Arena Stage, The Kennedy Center, EST, La Jolla Playhouse, Perishable Theater, Mixed Blood, New Dramatists, PlayPenn, and The Lark, among others.   Lila Rose was a recipient of the Adele and Ted Shank Playwriting Fellowship in 2008.   She spent a year in residence at Cornerstone Theatre Company in Los Angeles.   Awards include Perishable Theatre’s International Women’s Playwriting Festival, EST/Sloan Foundation Fellow, and the I.J. Kapstein Award in Playwriting.   Lila Rose teaches playwriting at Westmont College, where she is an Artist-in-Residence.   She belongs to the Dramatists Guild of America and is a founding member of The Playwrights Union in Los Angeles.   Lila Rose is a graduate of Brown University. She received her MFA in Playwriting from UCSD.

      About the Play

      Lieutenant Kay McClure, a hotshot young pilot, meets her match in Major Anne Clarkson.   Recognizing her talent, Clarkson is hell bent on training Kay to fly an elite fighter – but to what purpose?   Enter an uninvited intruder, on assignment for the story of his career, and in pursuit of Kay, the love of his life. Will his inquiry peril the delicate path forged by women who dare?   A dark poetic comedy about women in the Air Force.

A dip in nanotube ink turns ordinary office paper into a high-energy electrode.

Ordinary paper can be turned into a battery electrode simply by dipping it into carbon-nanotube inks. The resulting electrodes, which are strong, flexible, and highly conductive, might be used to make cheap energy storage devices to power portable electronics.

Paper electrode: Nanotubes absorb into paper and bind strongly to cellulose fibers, as shown in this scanning-electron micrograph. Credit: PNAS

It’s now possible to print lightweight circuits and screens for electronics like e-readers, but conventional batteries still weigh these devices down. Carbon nanotubes are a promising material for printing batteries because, in addition to their strength, light weight, and conductivity, they can store a large amount of energy–a quality that helps portable electronics run longer between charges.

Now a group of Stanford University researchers, led by materials science professor Yi Cui, have demonstrated that ordinary office paper soaks up carbon nanotubes like a sponge and can be turned into electrodes for batteries and supercapacitors. The advantage of paper, says Cui, is that it’s cheap and interacts strongly with nanotubes without the need for putting additives in the ink. “We take advantage of the porous structure of paper,” says Cui. “Carbon nanotubes absorb into the paper and stick on really tightly.”  Read more:  http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/24097/?nlid=2587&a=f

One of the biggest things holding back electronic technology is battery technology but the pressure is on and new ideas are starting to emerge. The latest of these uses normal copier paper coated with an “ink” made from tiny carbon nano tubes and silver nano wires. The fibre in the paper acts as a skeleton on which to hold the nano carbon and it is then soaked in ionic liquid electrolytes, such as a lithium solution. Stanford University scientists have demonstrated a postage stamp sized battery with enough power to light a small bulb. The exciting thing is the possibility for cheap and fairly light batteries that could be produced by using a convention printing press, which is a fairly low-tech solution compared to most other emerging cell technologies. With pressure from the makers of laptop computers and mobile phones plus the hybrid car market the future looks bright for the scientist behind this idea. Other ideas are being investigated such as using cloth instead of paper and a version that uses blood as the electrolyte, which could power things like pace-makers or other life saving devices.

Solar cells reflect light – even as they absorb it to produce electricity.

Five Stanford University researchers hope to keep the unused rays from getting away. In a November research paper, the electrical engineers unveiled a breakthrough they cal nanodome. They claim it improves the efficiency of a simple solar cell by 25 percent.

A field of microscopic nanodomes keeps reflected light from leaving a solar cell

By applying a thin coasting that under the microscope looks like a field of tiny domes, the reflected light is captured and turned to energy.

“Nanodome solar cells with only a 280 nm thick hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) layer can absorb 94% of the light with wavelengths of 400−800 nm, significantly higher than the 65% absorption” without the domes, according to their research.

In a low-power cell like those used on wristwatches, 35 percent of light can be reflected back into the sky. With Nanodome technology, the efficiency can be improved to 5.9 percent from 4.7 percent, 25 percent improvement.

“The nanodome structure is not in principle limited to any specific material system and its fabrication is compatible with most solar manufacturing; hence it opens up exciting opportunities…to further improve performance, (and) reduce materials usage,” the report said.

Hello there, many of you have been curious as to how things are going in our move to the bay area of California.  Here are some of my early (1 week) impressions.  

We settled in Menlo Park, which you probably have not heard of, but which is a stone’s throw from Palo Alto, which you might not have heard of either, but which is home to Stanford University, which you likely HAVE heard of.  We are all of 3 minutes from Stanford U.  

 Let me say this up front: as Texans these past 20 years and Dear Hubby (DH hereafter) his whole life, we have been spoiled by SPACE.  Sheer SPACE.  Here, houses are piled upon houses.  Every available inch seems to have been built on.  I am aware of the zero lot line in Dallas, but that is a CHOICE; here, it’s a necessity given the population masses and densities (7.4M in the bay area).  And there’s just cars cars cars traffic traffic traffic everywhere!   

We live on a peninsula!  It’s so crowded (101 cities and 10 counties), that although the GPS tells us a certain destination is only 3 miles away, it might take 20 minutes, due to all the lights, traffic and 25 mile per hour streets.  There’s no option as in Austin to “hop on 183 expressway and get anywhere in 15 minutes and usually in 7”.  The peninsula is just one big urban sprawl of town after town, from San Francisco down to San Jose, roughly 50 miles.  There are expressways up and down the peninsula that get bogged down daily during excruciating 3.5-hour-rush-hour (and which we adamantly avoided by our apartment decision).  But there are few EWays cross-peninsula, anyway, it’s only ~20 miles across.    

half moon bay

DH and daughter have already been to the ocean and beach at Half Moon Bay across the Santa Cruz mountains – it took them all of 22 minutes (see pic).  Another 20 or so minutes in the opposite direction and we’re at San Francisco bay.  

You might imagine DH is itchin’ to go fishin’!

 

 

 

 

Secondly, our apartment is about 1000 square feet less than we’re used to.  We made a lot of compromises/creative use of space (read: the office is un-inhabitable at the moment .   I haven’t lived in an apartment since 1993; this has also been an adjustment.  We don’t have covered parking.  The kitchen is tiny – I keep bumping into DH; my conclusion is, best just stay out of the kitchen! .  The bathrooms are small and accoutrements marginal (where’s my sink? and what’s up with linoleum?).  There are no washer/dryer connections at all – yikes!  The floor squeaks in places.  And yet, somehow we like it! 

 

The apartment has a good vibe, “good bones” as my realtor friend Karen Mateszewski would say.  It’s got huge patio doors in the living room that look out on the most gorgeous red maple, and another spectacular red tree (of unknown species – all this California foliage is new to me!), it feels like they are IN our living room!  There’s the heated pool and hot tub that are “at the ready” with no upkeep on our part.  It’s quiet.  There are big mature trees and great landscaping, it feels like we are in a forest (compared to Austin anyway!).  And, it really *is* big enough.  This move led us to shed all those non-essentials that we’d acquired over the years – getting down to basics is satisfying.   

skyline blvd thru santa cruz mountains

Other things to like!: 10 minute commute at most to work.  We are also minutes from the beautiful Santa Cruz mountains (see pic) where there *is* lots of open space, and there are lovely hills and trees in this area and FALL COLOR!.  It’s not snowing and it’s never going to be 100 degrees, or even 90 degrees.  Excellent school district for our daughter – we won’t have to send her to private school – we’ll just have to teach her not to be bullied by snobby Palo Alto kids    

You may be thinking, why didn’t we consider buying a house, what about the much-ballyhooed  housing bubble burst in CA, shouldn’t there be some good deals?  Well, houses in the Palo Alto/Menlo Park area *start* at $1.5M (down from $2M I guess!!!)  Case in point – you gotta click on this link to this simply incredulous $3M 1000 sqft home built in 1920… !!! The townhomes across the street are $1M and they look like nothing better than an $850 a month apartment in Austin.  Driving further out, prices do get an itty bit better: across the bay, a house that does not hold a candle to our Austin home is worth $650K, and the commute would be a punishing 45 minutes minimum, more like an hour, each way.  We cannot swallow paying that kind of money for a house; it just makes no sense to us.   

 As for renting a house, that will require a lot more investigation.  The houses I looked at that were commute-friendly and in our price range were tiny, 70s/60s/50s/earlier with no updates, and had major things wrong with them, such as:  

• they were perched inches from the expressway
• they boasted double paned windows that were all fogged up/covered with dirt inside with no way to clean them
• one advertised as a 2-bath – the second was a toilet – just a toilet, completely exposed – installed in the garage!

You get the idea – gaaaarrrrrhhhhh I could not stomach them.  

True city livin’!  We now live in walking distance to Starbucks, grocery store, a couple of restaurants, bar, pizza joint, a couple of parks, etc.  It’s very cool not to have to constantly jump in the car (although here’s a telling remark from my little one “Mom, why don’t we jump in the car instead of walk to the park?”)  

Speaking of our Austin home, we could not bear to part with it, so we’re trying to rent it out (not to mention it’s not a seller’s market).  Here’s the craigslist link; if you could spread the word, or know of anyone, we’d be grateful.  

Finally, there’s this sense of adventure we as a family share – everything is sensually stimulating, from trying the local Cal-Mex, to hiking to the Stanford “dish” (see pic), the different grocery stores, going to a new church, finding new trails on the Stanford campus to run on, the much greater diversity of culture, visually appreciating the orange and lemon trees that grow here (and other fantastic foliage)… it’s all brand new to us!  I can’t wait to try out all the hiking trails in the redwoods - I understand there’s tons of it!   

We’re smiling, and open to new experiences!  

What about YOUR adventures?  Feel free to share!  

The Standford Mobile Phone Orchestra (MoPho) is an enigmatic yet innovative example of how quickly technology is changing and being put to use in the United States.

Using devices like iPhones, combined with mobile phone hardware and software, people can sing or play instrumental music! 

Check out their website at http://mopho.stanford.edu/ 

The New York Times published a story about  this orchestra on Friday.

To read this article, click http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/05/technology/05orchestra.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

 According to MoPho’s website, the group hosted a concert at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics on December 3, 2009.

Thanks to the New York Times video gallery, here’s a clip on how it works!http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/12/04/technology/1247465985991/stanford-s-iphone-orchestra.html

Stanford assistant professor and entrepreneur, Ge Wang makes music with a mobile phone orchestra and iPhone ocarina. News Article