Humour - Systems of Gouvernement, Economic Systems, Companies Described in few sentences,

Conversation Starter - No offence intended, Comments, Criticism suggestions fully welcomed

How true do you rate the following definitions?

Humour: rate 0 to 10

Truth: rate 0 to 10

Fire Away - Read on

SOCIALISM

You have 2 cows.

You give one to your neighbour.

COMMUNISM

You have 2 cows.

The State takes both and gives you some milk.

FASCISM

You have 2 cows.

The State takes both and sells you some milk.

NAZISM

You have 2 cows.

The State takes both and shoots you.

BUREAUCRATISM

You have 2 cows.

The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws the milk away.

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM

You have two cows.

You sell one and buy a bull.

Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.

You sell them and retire on the income.

ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND (VENTURE) CAPITALISM

You have two cows.

You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows.

The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company.

The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more.

You sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States , leaving you with nine cows.

No balance sheet provided with the release.

The public then buys your bull.

SURREALISM

You have two giraffes.

The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION

You have two cows.

You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.

Later, you hire a consultant to analyse why the cow has dropped dead.

A FRENCH CORPORATION

You have two cows.

You go on strike, organise a riot, and block the roads, because you

want three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION

You have two cows.

You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.

You then create a clever cow cartoon image called a Cowkimona and market it worldwide.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION

You have two cows, but you don't know where they are.

You decide to have lunch.

A SWISS CORPORATION

You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you.

You charge the owners for storing them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION

You have two cows.

You have 300 people milking them.

You claim that you have full employment, and high bovine productivity.

You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION

You have two cows.

You worship them.

A BRITISH CORPORATION

You have two cows.

Both are mad.

AN IRAQI CORPORATION

Everyone thinks you have lots of cows.

You tell them that you have none.

No-one believes you, so they bomb the ** out of you and invade your country.

You still have no cows, but at least you are now a Democracy.

AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION

You have two cows.

Business seems pretty good.

You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate.

A NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION

You have two cows.

The one on the left looks very attractive.

Materials Science and Engineering Defined: Renewable and Alternative Energy Sources Ranked_Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, energy security_Information Overload Mastered

Materials Science and Engineering Defined: Renewable and Alternative Energy Sources Ranked_Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, energy security_Information Overload Mastered

Top 10 surprising results attributed to global-warming Slide show from Live Science

One example of influential slide shows brought to us by Live Science in their Countdown series

Top 10 surprising results attributable to global-warming

Fight Climate Change or Adapt to it?  - I for one surmise that an intelligent mix is of great urgency and amply justifies and echo in this blog "This Above All"

USA's National Center for Manufacturing Sciences practises what many already believe "that collaboration is innovation's incubator"

LINK:

Conversations-on-Innovations: USA's National Center for Manufacturing Sciences practises what many already believe "that collaboration is innovation's incubator"

Bookmark Herrmann Brain Dominance Concepts,Tools

Bookmark Herrmann Brain Dominance Concepts,Tools

Together with Jeff Rhodes' Effective Intelligence. tools, HBD is considered top of the cognitive management systems and tools available to assess how an individual thinks.

Bookmark Herrmann Brain Dominance Concepts,Tools.

My blog posts on Effective Intelligence started around  27  Sept 2010 " with a post 
Six Strategic Mental Attitudes Part II - Strategic Mental Attitude N° I - BENCHMARKING

This series of 6 posts was hindered by my PC loss (stollen). This will be rectified in the days and weeks to come; I trust readers will appreciate this perseverance. 

Hindsight-Foresight-Insight and from Insight to Action

　Hindsight-Foresight-Insight

Since these key concepts "Hindsight-Foresight" are fundamental to the preoccupations of this blog it is fitting that a little more insight be given to the underlying meanings which these concepts may conjure-up.
-Hindsight obviously conjure up the notion of experience, age…
-Foresight conjures up the attractive idea of mapping the future, reducing uncertainty and anxiety maximizing profit minimising loss etc...

Here the solution is in the concept of Insight.

Two references are quoted:

1. Soft and rather poetic.
2. Harsh_the harshness and anguish of seeking insight in response to the 9-11 terrorist attack.
First an interesting and rather poetic approach to the opposing hindsight-foresight dilemma which we shall see can be transcended as all dilemmas must be if solutions are to be found.

One can ask "what is more important"?

The looking backwards that comes with hindsight, or the looking forward that comes with foresight?

V.P. Mosser of learnthelessons.com explains as follows:

"I found that I'm able to learn lessons from past experiences by using hindsight, however, I'm also able to foresee future potential road blocks and pitfalls by using foresight."

Mosser’s Straight Board Analogy.

The ridged thick board cannot be bent the board. "The board is like the dilemma in the question "what is more important, hindsight or foresight"? It's one board with two different ends." (ie.  holistic approach ) And goes on to explain "that one needs a balancing point, a point where you can see both ends, or both points, simultaneously." What Mosser recommends, is insight; and which he goes on to define as "vision in the moment, that's the transfer point between hindsight and foresight. Insight is neither hindsight nor foresight, yet it is of both."

"The focal point, or in other words, the point of balance in the middle of the teeter-totter that makes the ride possible is like insight. That focal point makes it possible for hindsight and foresight to transfer their energy and wisdom between one another. This point is also the birthplace of the two endpoints because it is the only spot that isn't a part of the past or a part of the future. What you do at this point of insight becomes your past, and what you do here at this point of insight determines your future. So, my friend, you might say that the balance point is insight-and the board represents hindsight at one end and foresight at the other. Just as the balance point transforms a simple board into a fun ride as a teeter-totter; so does insight effect our lives when we use the balance point of insight."
"To paraphrase:
You see, insight operates in the moment, it's instantaneous-it's not of time-it's simply a marker between the past and the future; another way to explain it would be as a porthole between the past and future. Insight is a transformational ( transcendental?) point in which life happens when one is completely attentive to each moment, to the present, which is where we live our lives, moment by moment.

The problem we so often experience is that we give our attention to the past or the future, at the expense of attending the all-important present moment. We worry about our past or fret about our future and in that process we give up our opportunity to exercise any influence we have in our lives, which can only happen in the here and now.

More from learnthelessons.com

2. Harsh_ The harshness and anguish of seeking insight in response to the 9-11 terrorist attack. 
In composing this narrative we have tried to remember that we write with the benefit and  the handicap of hindsight. Hindsight can sometimes see the past clearly - with 20/20 vision. But the path of what happened is so brightly lit that it places everything else more deeply into shadow.

Commenting on Pearl Harbor, Roberta Wohlstetter found it "much easier after the event to sort the relevant from the irrelevant signals. After the event, of course, a signal is always crystal clear; we can now see what disaster it was signaling since the disaster has occurred. But before the event it is obscure and pregnant with conflicting meanings."

Insight for the future is thus not easy to apply in practice. It is hardest to mount a major effort while a problem still seems minor. Once the danger has fully materialized, evident to all, mobilizing action is easier—but it then may be too late.
The methods for detecting and then warning of surprise attack that the U.S.
government had so painstakingly developed in the decades after Pearl Harbordid not fail; instead,they were not really tried.They were not employed to analyze the enemy that, as the twentieth century closed, was most likely to launch a surprise attack directly against the United States.
In guise of a conclusion from the 9-11 Commission Report:

From Insight to Action  requires Exceptional Insight and Action comes at times of Exceptional Circumstances: The following is quoted the 9-11 C report.
"The Millennium Exception
Before concluding our narrative, we offer a reminder, and an explanation, of
the one period in which the government as a whole seemed to be acting in
concert to deal with terrorism—the last weeks of December 1999 preceding
the millennium."

"In the period between December 1999 and early January 2000, informa-
tion about terrorism flowed widely and abundantly.The flow from the FBI was
particularly remarkable because the FBI at other times shared almost no infor-
mation."
More...cf. reference 2 below whose conclusions I strongly recommend.
Indeed balance is ever necessary be it individual or big gouvernment-organisations!

There is much to be said for the poetic approach to personal focus, balance and 'thinking outside the box' for creative thought and depth of insight.

References.
1. More from learnthelessons.com

2. THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT [pdf]

LINK _Project Portfolio Management _Foresight-Hindsight in Materials Science and Engineering

LINK

Foresight-Hindsight in Materials Science and Engineering _Project Portfolio Management

TRUE or FALSE QUOTES and COMMENTS: "For the super rich, money is the universal super powerful detergent, the universal clean all"

TRUE or FALSE QUOTES and COMMENTS: "For the super rich, money is the universal super powerful detergent, the universal clean all"

Let me share some thought raising "pearls of wisdom" quoted from my current passion for Detective and Thriller Fiction.

The present quote is due to Harlan Coben in his novel "Temps Mort" in French-(my interpretation of the french, Original title in English "One false move". There are a number of others in the same work, which I may manage to bring to my readers attention and in doing so encourage bloggers and blog readers to share my taste for Detective and Thriller Fiction such as Coben among others.

Believe it or not, there is no conscious reference to current event in French and International affaires.

Geoffrey West On the Scale and Unity of Life from Cells to Cities

New video added to my vodpod video wall

Just as dimensional analysis [pdf] is a fundamental tool of engineering in getting the right units and checking phenomena so too is scaling fundamental to coming to grips with complex systems.

In this video Geoffrey West of the Santa Fe Institute helps us come to grips with such complex systems as life the ultimate biological mystery.

Join the discussion

The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy - Harvard Business Review

Window to HBR-Harvard Business Review

Let me share this window to HBR, from a publicity banner on Linkedin.

The current link recalls, The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy by Michael E. Porter and figuers an excellant video of an extensive interview with Mike Porter himself.

The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy - Harvard Business Review

Well worth a visit.

Enjoy

Power and corruption by any name?

This Economist article entitled "How to curb your legal bills " gives yet again an enlightening and unflattering view of the US governing and judicial system - a near closed shop system. It gives some basic facts to on which to base ones militant actions. It is a good conversation starter. I for one now understand better how one private individual - a militant lawyer, did far more to protect US consumers than any elected senator or state governor, his name? Ralph Nader

However for readers are seeking recipes to curb lawyers fees, one should consult readers comment at the end of the article.

Value for money - in a recent operation here in France, I would place the following over-rated fees as follows
1. Estate Agencies minimum 5000 euros for lower valued property, increasing with sales price - very little effort involved.
2. Lawyers fee - at least much higher skill level
I placed State agency

Shame on such professions compared to the skill and physical effort made by our father and son micro enterprise team who
A. pulled-out the obsolete electrical wiring and fuse system and put in brand new one respecting modern legislation standards.
B. Transferred a partial but brand new kitchen unit plus completed the missing elements + working surface new modern sink unit pluming+wall tiles-.
C. fully tilled the bathroom and separate WC. Installed new bathroom hand washing unit. Removed ancient wall paper on all rooms and painted walls and woodwork.
Our externally imposed delays-roughly 1 month to get the job done- imposed a very tight schedule on our team which remained unruffled throughout-true professionals!

Price: of the same order of magnitude as the above "Named and Shamed".

Of course my wife and I did some manual labouring support throughout.

This is written in a context where subsidised unemployed persons are finger pointed - Were Banks today not "subsidised, were car manufacturers in France not subsidised..Energy and transport lobbied too. The list is too long.

I trust this wiki will help stimulate some common sense in "value analysis"
in reference to:

"How to curb your legal bills"
- The price of legal services: How to curb your legal bills | The Economist (view on Google Sidewiki)

Iodine-131, Xenon 133, Cesium 137 Northern hemisphere - radiation | FLEXPART: dispersion model_This Above All

Nolonger hearing about the FUKISHIMA radiation cloud on the news in France, I finally got around to looking up the current cloud dispersion data via Internet.

The full chart shows Xenon-133 dispersion 27 March 2011 for the northern hemisphere:

The following charts are from the UK site, Weatheronline and can be followed day by day:

Iodine-131 Northern hemisphere - radiation | FLEXPART: dispersion model

Xenon-133 - Northern hemisphere - FLEXPART: dispersion model

Caesium-137 - Northern hemisphere - FLEXPART: dispersion model


I have also added a video to my wall above my posts.

Learn more on radioactivity via wikipedia:

Radioactivity

Ionizing Radiation

Xenon

Naturally occurring xenon is made of nine stable isotopes, the most of any element with the exception of tin, which has ten. Xenon and tin are the only elements to have more than seven stable isotopes.^[61] The isotopes ¹²⁴Xe, ¹³⁴Xe and ¹³⁶Xe are predicted to undergo double beta decay, but this has never been observed so they are considered to be stable.^[62] Besides these stable forms, there are over 40 unstable isotopes that have been studied. ¹²⁹Xe is produced by beta decay of ¹²⁹I, which has a half-life of 16 million years, while ^131mXe, ¹³³Xe, ^133mXe, and ¹³⁵Xe are some of thefission products of both ²³⁵U and ²³⁹Pu,^[60] and therefore used as indicators of nuclear explosions. Ref Wikipedia 

Caesium

¹³⁷Cs with a half-life of 30.17 years is one of the two principal medium-lived fission products, along with strontium-90, which are responsible for most of the radioactivity of spent nuclear fuel after several years of cooling, up to several hundred years after use. It constitutes most of the radioactivity still left from the Chernobyl accident. ¹³⁷Cs beta decays to barium-137m (a short-lived nuclear isomer) then to nonradioactive barium-137, and is also a strong emitter of gamma radiation. ¹³⁷Cs has a very low rate of neutron capture and cannot be feasibly disposed of in this way, but must be allowed to decay. ¹³⁷Cs has been used as a tracer in hydrologic studies, analogous to the use of ³H.

Iodine-131

Iodine-131 (half-life 8 days) is a beta-emitting isotope, which is a common nuclear fission product. It is preferably administered to humans only in very high doses which destroy all tissues that accumulate it (usually the thyroid), which in turn prevents these tissues from developing cancer from a lower dose (paradoxically, a high dose of this isotope appears safer for the thryoid than a low dose). Like other radioiodines, I-131 accumulates in the thyroid gland, but unlike the others, in small amounts it is highly carcinogenic there, it seems, due to the high local cell mutation due to damage from beta decay. Because of this tendency of ¹³¹I to cause high damage to cells that accumulate it and other cells near them (0.6 to 2 mm away, the range of the beta rays), it is the only iodine radioisotope used as direct therapy, to kill tissues such as cancers that take up artificially iodinated molecules (example, the compound iobenguane, also known as MIBG). For the same reason, only the iodine isotope I-131 is used to treat Grave's disease and those types of thyroid cancers (sometimes in metastatic form) where the tissue that requires destruction, still functions to naturally accumulate iodide.

Materials Science and Engineering Defined: Topics for discussed_Renewable Energy in India, 5th May 2011 - Step towards achieving Climate Change Goals

Materials Science and Engineering Defined: Topics for discussed_Renewable Energy in India, 5th May 2011 - Step towards achieving Climate Change Goals

Materials Science and Engineering Defined: Who's Who in Renewable Energy in India, 5th May 2011 - A step towards achieving Climate Change Goals

Materials Science and Engineering Defined: Who's Who in Renewable Energy in India, 5th May 2011 - A step towards achieving Climate Change Goals

Link-A Banquet of Consequences: Systems Thinking and Modeling for Climate Policy-Dire Warning

A Banquet of Consequences: Systems Thinking and Modeling for Climate Policy-Dire Warning

KTN- Knowledge Transfer Network, UK - Video Streams on Environment sustainability

LINK to post and video access - KTN-Knowledge Transfer Network-video stream
Also available via the above video wall.

Cheers and enjoy viewing and participation in the live stream debates.

UK University Business Schools Rank - 2010 Final. Check it out.

UK University Business Schools Ranked

Check the UK University Rank and Ranking criteria here:

Faculty satisfaction with the ranking methods are very variable - Tell us more.

All comments, criticism, remarks etc. are most  welcome. Please feel free to vent your thoughts, affinities and feelings.