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05 June 2009, 20:43
Leonardo Da Vinci's 10 Best Ideas ?
1.The Vitruvian Man
Da Vinci modeled his perfect human form after the proportions laid out by Vitruvius, an ancient Roman architect. The angry-looking man drawn by Da Vinci has reason to smile - he's now considered one of the most recognizable figures on earth.
2 Geologic Time
Plate tectonics? No sweat. While most of his contemporaries explained inland, mountain-top mollusk fossils as leftovers from the Great Flood, Da Vinci thought otherwise. He supposed (right) that the mountains must once have been coastline before many years of gradually shifting upwards.
3. The Self-Propelled Car
It's no Ferrari, but Da Vinci's designs for a self-propelled vehicle were revolutionary for his day. His wooden "car" moved by the interaction of springs with geared wheels. Scientists at one museum in Florence built a replica in 2004 and found it worked as Da Vinci intended.
4. The Ideal City
Living in a Milan wrought with plague, Da Vinci envisioned a more efficient city he'd be proud to call home. His architectural draughts are highly detailed and even include horse stables with fresh air vents. To the bewilderment of modern Milanese, he did not make room for a soccer stadium.
5. The Aerial Screw
Modern scientists agree it may never have lifted off the ground, but Da Vinci's "helicopter" design is still one of his most famous. The curious contraption was meant to be operated by a four-man team and could have been inspired by a windmill toy popular in Leonardo's time.
6.The Triple-Barreled Cannon
More thinker than fighter, Da Vinci's distaste for conflict didn't stop him from dreaming up designs for more efficient cannons like this one. His jacked-up triple-barrel would have been a deadly weapon on the battlefield, fast and light with lots of extra fire power.
7. The Winged Glider
Da Vinci's imagination was filled to capacity with ideas for flying machines, including several gliders equipped with flappable wings. This open-shelled model, fitted with seats and gears for the pilot, did not include a design for a crash helmet.
8. The Revolving Bridge
Always a fan of the quick getaway, Da Vinci thought his revolving bridge would be best used in warfare. The light yet sturdy materials, affixed to a rolling rope-and-pulley system, allowed an army to pick up and go at a moment's notice.
9. Scuba Gear
Da Vinci's fascination with the sea spurred many designs for aquatic exploration. His diving suit was made of leather, connected to a snorkel made of cane and a bell that floated at the surface. Proving the artist was also practical, the suit included a pouch the diver could urinate in.
10 .Mirror Writing
Was it a ploy to thwart Renaissance copycats peeking at his notes, or just a way to avoid the inky mess of writing left-handed? Whatever his motives, Da Vinci sure liked mirror writing: most of his journals are scrawled in reverse.
Photo Credit: Leonardo da Vinci, Italian High Renaissance master, is shown in this undated portrait drawing. Da Vinci was born in Florence, Italy in 1452 and died in 1519. (AP Photo)
Source credit : www.livescience.com
ENJOY!
Margarita Nomeikiene
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24 May 2009, 01:11
Do You Have Adaptability? by Tony Alessandra
Do You Have Adaptability?
Being willing and able to adapt your behavior increases your ability to communicate and build relationships with other people. The concept of adaptability, as developed by Dr. Michael O’Connor, my co-author of The Platinum Rule (Warner Books, August 1996), is a two-part process. It combines flexibility with versatility. Flexibility is your willingness to adapt. It’s your attitude.
Versatility is your ability to adapt. It’s your aptitude. People with adaptability are both flexible and versatile. Of course, our level of adaptability can be stronger in some situations than others. For example, we tend to be more adaptable at work with people we know less, and less adaptable at home with people we know better. In addition, research shows that people view themselves as more flexible and versatile than they actually are. That’s because we all aspire to those behaviors, and we judge ourselves on how we intend to act as well as on how we do act. But unfortunately, our actions don’t always match our intentions. Another reason for the gap between our ideal versus our actual level of adaptability is that it’s not easy. That’s why it’s also important to know the 10 characteristics that undermine your ability to adapt—the negative traits that undermine your adaptability. Let’s look now at the 10 positive characteristics for adaptability. We’ll start with flexibility.
The first half of the high-adaptability formula—Flexibility
High flexibility is characterized by these five attributes: confidence, tolerance, empathy, positiveness and respect for others. The first attribute, confidence, means that you believe in yourself; you trust your own judgement and resourcefulness.
The second high flexibility attribute is tolerance. That means you’re open to accepting opinions and practices different from your own. We can easily think of people who are intolerant of others because of religious or political beliefs. Those intolerant folks may attract like-minded people, but they don’t gain the attention of a diverse audience.
Third, is empathy. The root of the word empathy is pathos, which means “feeling” in Greek. Empathy is a term for deep feeling. It means, “I feel what you feel. I can put myself in your shoes.” Another word with the same root, sympathy, means merely acknowledging someone else’s feelings. It results in kindness and pity, and it comes from the head. Empathy results in feeling the pain, or the joy, of the other person. It comes from the heart.
The fourth high-flexibility attribute is positiveness. The late Dr. Norman Vincent Peale’s book The Power of Positive Thinking has sold well for more than 40 years because it contains such a universal truth. A positive attitude leads to positive events in your life.
And the fifth high-flexibility characteristic is respect for others. This is the sincere desire to understand and consider other people’s choices, commitments and needs in relation to yours.
The other side of the adaptability coin: The negative traits that undermine your adaptability. If you recognize any of these in yourself, try to improve your adaptability by eliminating this negative tendency from your behavior.
Enjoy!
Just what you need to know about Tony Allessandra
Tony Allessandra is a speaker and author whose books include The Platinum Rule, Collaborative Selling and The Art of Managing People. Allessandra's numerous video and film projects include the award-winning film, The Power of Listening. Allessandra was inducted into the National Speaker's Association Hall of Fame in 1985 and is a member of the Speaker's Roundtable, a group of 20 of the world's most recognized professional speakers.
Sincerely,
Margarita Nomeikiene
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20 May 2009, 11:21
FSF Settles Suit Against Cisco
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) and Cisco Systems, Inc. are pleased to announce that they have reached a joint agreement.
BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA -- Wednesday, May 20, 2009 -- The Free Software Foundation (FSF) and Cisco Systems, Inc. are pleased to announce that they have reached a joint agreement.
Under the agreement, the FSF has agreed to dismiss its lawsuit against Cisco.
Cisco has agreed to appoint a Free Software Director for Linksys, a subsidiary of Cisco, to supervise Linksys' compliance with the requirements of free software licenses such as the GPL (the GNU General Public License). The Free Software Director will report periodically to the FSF regarding Linksys' compliance efforts. Cisco has further agreed to take certain steps to notify previous recipients of Linksys products containing FSF programs of their rights under the GPL and other applicable licenses, to publish a licensing notice on the Linksys website, and to provide additional notices in a separate publication. In addition, Cisco will continue to make the complete and corresponding source code for versions of FSF programs used with current Linksys products freely available on its website. Cisco will also make a monetary contribution to the FSF.
The parties recognize Cisco's ongoing obligations under the GPL and other free software licenses. The FSF will continue to independently monitor Linksys' compliance with these licenses, and work with Linksys to resolve any new issues that may arise.
"We are glad that Cisco has affirmed its commitment to the free software community by implementing additional measures within its compliance program and dedicating appropriate resources to them, further reassuring the users' freedoms under the GPL," said Peter Brown, Executive Director of the FSF. "Our agreement results in making all of the relevant source code available in the fastest way possible."
About the FSF
The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software -- particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants -- and free documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of software, and its Web sites, located at fsf.org and gnu.org, are an important source of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF's work can be made at http://donate.fsf.org. Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA.
Media Contacts
Brett Smith
Licensing Compliance Engineer
Free Software Foundation
+1 (617) 542 5942 x18
brett@fsf.org
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Sincerely,
Mararita Nomeikiene
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