Today’s suggestion is to support what is basically the freedom of the press and/or personal expression via the written word especially.

Anyone who has followed my Blogs would know that there have been cases where a Blogger has been imprisoned for his/her views. This has been so of Christians in Islamic countries for example.

Supporting the right of expression via the written word is something I do via my Blogs. I report news of Christian Bloggers and those who witness for Christ that are persecuted.

See also:

www.internationalpen.org.uk

A response to reading ‘365 Ways to Change the World,’ by Michael Norton

Today’s suggestion is about doing something about the many children throughout the world that receive no education or very limited education. This can be especially true of many girls in some countries and seems to be more so in some strict Islamic communities and regions.

It is difficult to know just what can be done in this field by the ‘average Joe,’ so to speak. Whereas individuals may not be able to do a lot personally, they may be able to contribute by being part of a larger organisation that is able to bring pressure to bear on governments around the world.

It is also possible to be part of a humanitarian organisation that seeks to assist people to receive education and/or by donating money to such a group.

For some ideas on this particular suggestion have a look at:

www.campaignforeducation.org & www.unicef.org

A response to reading ‘365 Ways to Change the World,’ by Michael Norton

Today’s suggestion is about supporting the ‘Buy Nothing Day’ initiative.  Buy Nothing Day is usually held at the end of November. The aim of the day is to raise awareness of our world’s dwindling resources and our preoccupation with unnecessary things.

I like the sound of this day and will try and support it, as well as being more aware of what I buy and why.

www.ecoplan.org/ibnd/ib_index.htm

A response to reading ‘365 Ways to Change the World,’ by Michael Norton

(CFD.net.au – Contract for Difference, Share, Forex, ETFs, Commodities Traders) – Qantas says it is working with the manufacturers of the Airbus A-380 to fix a flight stability problem with one of the super jumbos it has on order. The airline’s fifth A-380 was due to arrive at the end of this month but its arrival has now been put off until December.

Qantas says the delay is because it is discussing flight trim issues with the manufacturer.

The flight trim system keeps the plane flying straight whether it is operated manually or on auto-pilot, but Qantas says any suggestion the plane cannot fly straight would be incorrect.

Steve Purvinas from the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association says it is not a safety issue, but the aircraft becomes less fuel efficient.

“A trim system on an aircraft is designed to keep your aircraft flying straight through the air, when you’re travelling along a path you want your aircraft lined up like an arrow rather than flying through the air like a brick,” he said.

“What can happen is the aircraft can start to oscillate in a figure eight pattern, but you try to avoid all those things with your aircraft having an effective trim system.”

Three A-380s have already been grounded this year.

One plane has had to have its fuel tank re-lined, while there were nose-wheel problems with another.

Source: Qantas talks straight on Airbus problem

Today’s suggestion was about self defence and was especially aimed at females – which makes sense because women are attacked more than men, which greatly concerns me.

I’m not particularly interested in taking a self-defence course myself, but I certainly would encourage women to do so.

A response to reading ‘365 Ways to Change the World,’ by Michael Norton

The Misconception: The best way to judge if one product tastes better than another is to hide the packaging.

The Truth: Most competing products have the same flavor and you pick your favorites based on other cues – like the packaging.

When it comes to taste – you are not so smart.

Wine, coffee, cigarettes, soda – your palette isn’t sophisticated enough to tell much of a difference between competing brands. Yet, you still have preferences.

Why?

In the early ’80s, Pepsi ran a marketing campaign where they touted the success of their product over Coca-Cola in blind taste tests. They called this The Pepsi Challenge.

Psychologists had already determined you choose your favorite products often not by their inherent value, but because the marketing campaigns and logos and such have cast a spell over you called brand awareness.

You start to identify yourself with one marketing campaign over another. That’s what happened in the all the taste tests up until the Pepsi Challenge. People liked Coca-Cola’s advertising more than Pepsi’s, so even though they tasted pretty much the same, when they saw that bright red can with a white ribbon people always chose Coke.

So, for the Pepsi Challenge, they removed the logos.

At first, the researchers thought they should put some sort of label on the glasses. So, they went with M and Q.

People said they liked Pepsi, labeled M, better than Coke, labeled Q.

Irritated by this, Coca-Cola did their own study and put Coke in both glasses. Again, M won the contest.

It turns out, it wasn’t the soda; people just liked the letter M better than the letter Q.

To make sense of the world, we look for cues from our environment whenever we find things we like. The process here is to get back to the good stuff by recognizing the cues which end in reward.

For the testers, the two products tasted pretty much the same. So, forced to make a choice, they moved to another set of cues to make their decision – which letter was more pleasant. Branding hijacks your natural affinity for visual shortcuts.

Miffed, Pepsi did the tests again. This time, no labels.

In these tests, people once again generally said they preferred Pepsi because it was slightly sweeter.

Undaunted, Coke again debunked their rival by showing the reactions were based on sips and not full glasses. When given a full glass, the tests went the other way with Coke as the champion.

If you only sample something in small quantities, in turns out, you will have a different opinion than if you were to taste larger amounts.

Do you smoke? Do you have a favorite brand?

In blind taste tests, long-time smokers can’t tell their brand from any of the competitors.

Do you like wine? Think expensive is better? In blind taste tests, even wine connoisseurs can’t tell $200 bottles from $20 ones.

Do you like fine dining? When presented microwaved food from the frozen food section in a fine restaurant, most people never notice.

Taste is subjective, which is another way of saying you are not so smart when it comes to choosing one product over another.

All things equal – you refer back to the advertising or the packaging or conformity with your friends and family.

Presentation is everything.

Links:

Freakonomics on wine tasting

Marketing menthol to black people

Cigarette packaging for teens

We’ve spent quite a bit of time looking at symbolic dreams and how to get the information they bring to us.

But what if you don’t dream? Or don’t remember your dreams?

Full dreams tend to occur during the REM (Rapid Eye Movement) part of sleep. With few exceptions, most people experience REM at least once per sleep cycle (whether that is a full 8 hours or even during many naps), so data indicates that most of us are dreaming on a regular basis.

Many people don’t remember their dreams. Some don’t remember so deeply that they don’t even remember that they have dreamed.

That seems like a kind of impasse there, if you can’t interpret your dreams because you can’t remember them.

There is a way of working with that, though…

First, when you’re planning on interpreting your dreams, be sure you’ve got writing materials (pad and pencil/crayon and sketch pad/ birch bark and quill dipped in crushed berries/whatever floats your boat!) right next to the bed.

(When passing from dreaming to waking state, you come through several different levels of brain waves. If, on top of that, you visit the bathroom, go get a drink, then have to hunt around for something to write on, you might as well kiss that dream goodbye now and save yourself the trouble.)

Then when you’re in bed and drifting off to sleep, tell yourself repeatedly “Tonight, I will dream and I will remember my dream…”

If you sleep alone, you can do this out loud. If you share sleeping quarters, do this silently in your mind (it’ll work just as well).

The silent method is because you don’t want to weird out your sleep buddy, plus it’s far harder to dream if said buddy keeps thumping you with a pillow and saying “Will you hush up?!!!“

How does this work? As you pass from full alertness (Beta waves) down through Alpha, Theta and Delta waves, your mind becomes more receptive to suggestions you give yourself. You’re, in effect, retraining your body to remember.

(For the record, this is an extremely simple form of self-hypnosis. If you have questions about that, please feel free to comment or email).

This may work pretty quickly, or it may take more time to work, based on parameters such as how deep you sleep, how receptive you are to your own suggestions, how much your sleep buddy hits you with that pillow, etc.; but the bottom line is that, if you keep doing it, you will begin to remember your dreams.

And, lucky you! You just happen to know how to interpret them…

More fun and games with dreaming on the way..

Catherine

Foresight

11/24/09

www.ForesightYourPsychic.com

www.ForesightYourCtPsychic.wordpress.com

Christmas is coming and yes we all have a million things to do and all those gifts to sort out. Well Hey Santa is here to make it a little bit easier by suggesting the perfect gifts. From icon Pillows to custom made cupcake cars, it’s all covered!

Today’s suggestion is to get involved in the Open Directory on the World Wide Web by applying to be an editor for the directory. The idea is to assist in manually categorising web sites submitted to the directory

For more information on the Open Directory visit:

http://dmoz.org

I have enough work in maintaining and adding to the many web sites, blogs, etc, that I own. So I’ll opt out of getting involved in this project, but none-the-less think it is a very worthwhile one.

Suggestion Fail

Picture by: Jake Submitted by: yougotfail via Fail Uploader

metez vous sur les pieds , ecartez les jambes , ouvrez les bras vers le haut ,les mains ouvert vers le ciel , la tete vers la nuque et respirez quelle ques une foix par la bouche grand ouvert.

le bonjour a notre corps

essaiyez , pour qoi pas

The suggestion for today was to try and save water and electricity by remembering to turn off the light switch, a power point, a tap, etc. Because we forget these things the book suggests making stickers to place next to a light switch for example.

This is a somewhat simple solution to a possibly costly memory issue, in that forgetting to flick a switch/turn off a tap costs money by way of the bill, as well as costing more in terms of environmental costs.

I have found myself being far more efficient in these areas in the last little while and hardly ever forget to turn off a light when not needed, turn off a tap when brushing teeth, etc. It did however take a lot of self-discipline and I can see how stickers/post-it’s, etc, can be handy for some people.

A response to reading ‘365 Ways to Change the World,’ by Michael Norton

The suggestion for today is to acknowledge and express thanks for those who have improved the human condition – for humanity in general and for myself in particular.

Today is known in the United States as ‘Thanksgiving Day.’ Here in Australia we know no such day – something which could be seen as both a good thing and a bad thing. Good, in that it is not another day commercialised and bad, in that there is no particular day for acknowledging our gratitude to those that have improved our lives, etc.

But why do we need a particular day for this – can we not be thankful and express our gratitude on a daily basis? I think we can. I am not calling for a false expression of gratitude and thankfulness, but that which is real and true – surely we can all find something to be thankful for? I know it isn’t hard for me to find plenty to be thankful for throughout each day.

A response to reading ‘365 Ways to Change the World,’ by Michael Norton

(CFD.net.au – Contract for Difference, Share, Forex, ETFs, Commodities Traders) – Qantas says it is working with the manufacturers of the Airbus A-380 to fix a flight stability problem with one of the super jumbos it has on order.

The airline’s fifth A-380 was due to arrive at the end of this month but its arrival has now been put off until December.

Qantas says the delay is because it is discussing flight trim issues with the manufacturer.

The flight trim system keeps the plane flying straight whether it is operated manually or on auto-pilot, but Qantas says any suggestion the plane cannot fly straight would be incorrect.

Steve Purvinas from the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association says it is not a safety issue, but the aircraft becomes less fuel efficient.

“A trim system on an aircraft is designed to keep your aircraft flying straight through the air, when you’re travelling along a path you want your aircraft lined up like an arrow rather than flying through the air like a brick,” he said.

“What can happen is the aircraft can start to oscillate in a figure eight pattern, but you try to avoid all those things with your aircraft having an effective trim system.”

Three A-380s have already been grounded this year.

One plane has had to have its fuel tank re-lined, while there were nose-wheel problems with another.

Source: Qantas talks straight on Airbus problem

The suggestion for today is about protecting the rights of children. Here in Australia it is sometimes said that children have more rights than their parents and to some extent this does appear to be a sound argument. More needs to be done to ensure parental rights in the area of discipline (note I didn’t say child abuse), etc.

However, throughout the world children face regular exploitation and abuse. The more that can be done to prevent this sort of abuse the better.

For more information on the rights of children visit:

www.unicef.org/crc

I will always seek to protect the rights of children wherever I see them threatened. This is something that I believe begins right where you live.

A response to reading ‘365 Ways to Change the World,’ by Michael Norton

This post doesn’t require a lot of explanation I don’t think. The suggestion is to do whatever we can in the war against child pornography – I agree 100% and will do whatever I can. Report it to the authorities at every opportunity and every time.

Suggestion:…Next time don’t make a decision on something this important..then jet off someplace on the other side of the planet  for week and expect no leaks….you work in Washington D.C…the place leaks like a sieve……

OK – this is a suggestion I’m all for. Wouldn’t the world be a so much better place with no terrorism? Certainly – now what can I do. I can be ‘alert, but not alarmed,’ as the Australian television add of a couple of years ago told me. But what more? Can terrorism be eliminated?

I doubt terrorism will ever be completely eliminated – but it would be great if it could be. We can certainly reduce it greatly and that too would be good.

The suggestion in the book ‘365 Ways to Change the World,’ by Michael Norton is a little disappointing here. Sure, I don’t agree with torture and unlawful detention, etc. However, the suggestion is a little too ‘polite’ toward terrorists for my liking. I have no time for terrorists and they need to be rooted out and, well, they will probably get hurt during the process – I don’t have a lot of sympathy for them I must admit.

The suggestion is for combating terrorism without the erosion of human rights while doing so. As I said – I don’t want to see human rights eroded. I also don’t want to see terrorists given soft treatment – they chose to forego that when they became terrorists in my book.

MyDecember from Camille Marotte on Vimeo.

What this project can bring in the canteen.

I want to hear from you. What do you want to talk about? Please leave me your suggestions. I will work very hard to get the information you are looking for.

JEEMUTHAVAHAN
In those days, snakes used to talk.
Jeemuthavahan saw  a mother snake weeping .
What is the matter, Maji? he asked.
Today, it is the turn of my only son, to go to the top of the hill and await Garuda. You know he is too cute and I will not live after his death, said the mother snake.
After hearing their representations, Vishnu, whose vehicle the hawk named Garud is, agreed to their suggestion that, every day they will offer one snake to Garud; he should not pick at random any snake, as was his habit.

The suggestion for today was to get together with people you don’t know and get to know them – to meet new people. I guess this is a way to broaden one’s horizons somewhat – get to know and see what other people do, how they live, etc.

I do meet new people from time to time – but can’t say I’m all that fussed to organise parties and events with people I don’t know.

A response to reading ‘365 Ways to Change the World,’ by Michael Norton

Today’s suggestion is one that I won’t be getting involved in. Sure, it is an amusing suggestion and I’m sure that some of the results of it would be funny. However, I have better things to do with my time.

The suggestion is to join in pie-throwing at politicians. This is meant to be an amusing way of protesting what you don’t agree with and drawing media attention to the plight of whatever it might be you are protesting. Not for me.

For more information on pie-throwing, visit:

www.bioticbakingbrigade.org

Today’s suggestion for changing the world is not quite what I expected – become an entrepreneur. Hmmm, interesting. I doubt I have the sticking power, finances and a plethora of other requirements necessary to pull this one off!

Ahhh – the suggestion is for becoming a social entrepreneur. Still have the same problem in putting this one into effect none-the-less.

Interested in anything like this? Have a look at:

www.ashoka.org

www.socialventures.com.au

www.pioneersofchange.net

Well worth a thought – and if you have an idea for effecting social change in the world, one of the above sites may be able to help you.