From the 13th until the 20th September, I shall be away and maintaining two Posts a day is going to be difficult.
I trust that the Post that is published each day continues to retain your interest in the Blog.
Thanks for reading.
By Paul Handover
Year: 2009
A Dog Story!
This has been doing the rounds and may be seen on numerous web sites and Blogs. It may be fiction but, nonetheless, it’s a good message.
Strangely, for a Blog called Learning from Dogs, there have been precious few dog stories. Maybe the integrity of a dog is so flippin’ obvious that we don’t need to wrap the species up in all sorts of romantic twaddle. This in no way, however, reduces the power of the message that dogs, along with many other species of warm-blooded animals (e.g. horses) are capable of reminding mankind of the importance of integrity.
Lend an Ear!
Taking stuff for granted.
Speaking to Paul on the phone and reading his comments about Hurricane Jimena, it’s clear that we all take basic things
in life very much for granted. The following was passed to me by a fellow commercial pilot who, like me, as you will probably appreciate, requires regular medicals to be passed fit to fly. It serves as a reminder to all of us that we should value frequently our health.
Here’s the tale.
The International Space Station
Almost taken for granted by so many of us.
Thanks to Dan for passing me the link to a fascinating graphic that was recently published in USA Today showing the
time-line of the International Space Station. It has been orbiting above our heads for over a decade! Do click on the link because you will be surprised, unless you work for NASA, how large and complex the ISS now is.
It’s an interesting to consider what has happened since the launch of the first module, Zanya, on the 20th November, 1998. Bill Clinton was then President of the USA; Tony Blair had been British Prime Minister since May, 1997. How times change!
But steadily a group of Nations has worked together to keep this project going and now the end of this magnificent enterprise is within sight. As the NASA web site summarises:
The International Space Station is a partnership of the US, Russian, European, Japanese, and Canadian Space Agencies. The station has been continuously human occupied since Nov 2, 2000. Orbiting 16 times per day at 17,500 miles per hour 250 miles above the ground, it passes over 90% of the world’s surface. When complete in 2010, it will weigh over 800,000 pounds and have a crew of 6 conducting research and preparing the way for future exploration to the moon and beyond.
By Paul Handover
Journey into (inner) space
The journey into inner space is just as fascinating as the one into outer space.
Many, many years ago, 1973 to be precise, an English author, Tony Buzan, was involved in presenting a series on BBC
television called Use Your Head. Tony released a book to accompany the television series. There is not a lot that I remember about that book but one thing I never forgot. That was the number of neurons in the brain, 10 to the power 200, give or take. I will return to this aspect in a later Post but now to the main point of this, my introductory Post.
Understanding unemployment, Part One
The Unemployment Rate: how it’s measured; what it means.
The unemployment rate is often used as a signal of how well an economy uses its resources.
The social costs of involuntary unemployment are evidence of a poorly functioning economy. The unemployment rate
in the U.S. currently stands at about 9.7%, causing deep concern about the overall health and viability of our economy.
Let’s first make sure we know how this reported unemployment statistic is measured.
The Saola, what future?
The Saola is one of the world’s rarest mammals, on the brink of extinction.
(Please share this Post as far and wide as you can – thank you.)
NOTE: Thanks to Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism for this amazing picture that came from the BBC. (By the way Yves’ Blog is an excellent subscription if only for the wonderful daily animal pictures.)
If you, like me, had never heard of this creature then be prepared to weep a few tears; this beautiful animal is very unlikely to survive as a species for much longer.
Planet Earth, just a reminder.
This is a beautiful planet and it’s the only one we have.
Yes, I know it’s not original but these pictures still have a haunting beauty about them.
Hurricane Jimena from space
The International Space Station passed directly overhead the storm.
Here’s what a hurricane looks like from 300 miles above. It has to be described as beautiful.
Here’s what a hurricane looks like from 30 feet away. It has to be described as ugly.
Wednesday, 9th – still no mains water or public sewerage services.
By Paul Handover
Now you see it, now you don’t!
Bermeja (Mexican Gulf) – anyone seen my island?
There’s a wonderful story in last week-end’s The Sunday Times, a British newspaper, written by Matthew Campbell concerning the loss of an important island that has been used previously to define the limits of Mexico’s maritime
border (read oil!). Here’s an extract:
The mystery has come to haunt Mexico as unrelentingly as one of its beloved soap operas: where is Bermeja, an island off the Yucatan coast that appears to have vanished without trace?
The disappearance of Bermeja is no laughing matter – it would allow Mexico to extend its maritime border some 55 miles further north, helping it to fight off what it sees as American encroachment on its claims to potentially vast oil reserves in the Mexican Gulf.
Learning from Dogs 