Dogs are animals of integrity. We have much to learn from them.
Author: Paul Handover
Hero rescues canyon-trapped canine
Using a cat carrier from a local animal hospital, outdoorsman Zak Anderegg was able to save a dog left for dead in a remote cavern in the canyons along the Arizona-Utah border.
Amazing story picked up off Facebook from Daniel Caride of The Daily Tail. Really worth watching.
By Paul Handover
The brilliance of fine engineering
The BBC have been started a series on how things are made! The first episode was on the making of a nuclear submarine – perhaps not something that touches most of us!
But the second episode was much more the ‘touch of the common man’ as it was about the building of a commercial jet engine, the Trent engine built by Rolls Royce of Derby, England.
Anyway, I’m not going to natter on other than to say that not all regulatory bodies are bad in this world. Indeed, the aviation industry has shown how splendid both engineering and the certification processes can be in giving us a incredibly safe form of transport.
There are plenty of YouTube videos on the Trent engine but here are two that I found of great interest. (Thanks to Simon H for the pointers.)
Rolls Royce Trent Engine Certification video
A380 Loss of Blade test
By Paul Handover
Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!
A quick Google search shows that this is a well-documented story that has been doing the rounds since 2009. But I hadn’t come across it before so was very grateful for a friend in England, Richard Howell, including me on a recent email circulation. I shall reproduce Richard’s email just as it was received.
OK… so… you’re the pilot of a plane…
It’s on auto-pilot and you’re catching up on People magazine and having a cup of coffee.
Suddenly the loudest sound you will ever hear goes off just behind your left ear.
You’re blinded by the flash and can’t hear.
All you can feel is something warm running down your leg.
You immediately consider retirement.
This is an Atlantic Southeast Airlines/Delta Connection aircraft… soon after it suffered a lightning strike.
Yep… time to RETIRE!
Thanks Richard,
By Paul Handover
Foreword by Jon
Although I have only seen a trailer for this film, I watched the interviews and excerpts Paul has linked in this article and found them very moving.
In these days of uncertainty and fear it is heartening to see and read about a relationship founded on unconditional love.
It signifies to me that it is the quality of our relationships that makes the difference in life, not material possessions – and then how we go about finding more examples of these in our everyday lives.
Jon Lavin
This is all about Trust
The prompt for writing this particular Post was the other evening Jean and I watched the film The Soloist. I’ll come on to that later.
Before I do, I want to look at another aspect of learning from dogs; that is the question of trust. We have so much to learn from dogs with regard to trust.
Because dogs spend so much of their time living in the present, just being a dog in the ‘now’ moment as it were, they seem to be able to read another dog very quickly. Dogs don’t have ‘hidden agendas’.
You see we humans can be (and should be) as happy in the present as dogs are. But so often our fears, worries and concerns for the future hinder our ability to experience the present, to enjoy the NOW.
Look at the faces of others around you when you have a moment. (Or, indeed look at your own right now in the mirror.) Do you see a face serenely happy unencumbered with the past or the future? Rarely is my guess.
That’s why a dog can read another dog in micro-seconds and know everything about that other animal. There are no secrets – what you see is what you get.
Look at this picture.
This is Poppy (8 lbs/3.5 kg) picking up food droppings from Pharaoh (90 lbs/40 kg). In fact, within seconds of taking this picture, Poppy had pushed between Pharaoh’s front legs and put her face in the dish and started eating Pharaoh’s food, at which point Pharaoh went over the Poppy’s dish and started eating from there. (NB. Anyone that has dogs in their home will know how possessive they can be at feeding time.)
Immediately when Pharaoh met Poppy, when he and I ended up in Mexico in 2008, they instantly trusted each other. This is a beta level (second in status to the alpha, i.e. dominant) pure bred German Shepherd bonding with a Yorkie mix female dog that was found, hairless and starving, on a Mexican construction site – rescued by Jean after almost certainly being thrown out after she had made some Mexican a few pesos from selling her puppies.
Here’s another picture of these two:
Now to the film. It wasn’t a blockbuster and didn’t get rave reviews but if viewed from the simple perspective of trust and friendship it delivers a powerful message that is beautifully compelling.
There’s an official trailer on YouTube here but the better review is this extract from the 60 Minutes programme below.
You need to watch this film to see how trust is built up, and out of that trust comes a wonderful friendship. But you will get a taste of the sheer beauty of this true story by this 12 minute YouTube video. Try and put aside these few minutes so you can watch this without interruption.
And here’s a link to another extract from the 60 Minutes programme concentrating on Mr Ayers playing his heart out.
If you want to read the column in the LA Times that Steve Lopez wrote in December 2004 about Mr Ayer’s Christmas present, just click here.
Finally, the film closes with these words from the actor who portrays Mr Lopez. Please read them to yourself, aloud if you can.
Points West by Steve Lopez
A year ago I met a man who was down on his luck and thought that I might be able to help him. I don’t know that I have. Yes, my friend Mr. Ayers now sleeps inside. He has a key, he has a bed, but his mental state and his well-being are as precarious now as they were the day we met.
There are people who tell me that I helped him, mental health experts who say that the simple act of being someone’s friend can change the brain chemistry, improve his functioning in the world.
I can’t speak for Mr Ayers in that regard, maybe our friendship has helped him, but maybe not.
I can however speak for myself. I can tell you that by witnessing Mr Ayers’ courage, his finality, his faith in the power of his art, I’ve earned the dignity of being loyal to something you believe in, holding on to him. Above all else, I believe him, without question that it will carry you home.
And now recall that when you were reading those words, you were totally and completely living in the present. Keep that feeling of grace close to you forever.
By living in the present, you offer yourself as a friend to the world.
By Paul Handover
The 14th Dalai Lama was born on the 6th July, 1935 thus making him 75 today.
By Paul Handover
Congratulations to Martin Wolf of the Financial Times
An article was published in the FT on the 29th June that beautifully describes the ways in which we are all being so beautifully ‘screwed’ by the world of finance. (Note, you may need to register to see this article, but please do. Registration is free and the FT is full of great content.)
It starts like this:
By Martin Wolf
Published: June 29 2010 23:31 | Last updated: June 29 2010 23:31
Paul here. Pass the parcel is a game for kids’ parties that involves passing a multi-wrapped ‘present’ around where the kid holding the parcel when the music stops gets to unwrap one sheet, then passes it on, etc., etc., until the kid holding the parcel with just one wrapper on it when the music stops gets the present.
Martin continues:
Our adult game of pass the parcel is far more sophisticated: there are several games going on at once; and there are many parcels, some containing prizes; others containing penalties.
So here are four such games. The first is played within the financial sector: the aim of each player is to ensure that bad loans end up somewhere else, while collecting a fee for each sheet unwrapped along the way. The second game is played between finance and the rest of the private sector, the aim being to sell the latter as much service as possible, while ensuring that the losses end up with the customers. The third game is played between the financial sector and the state: its aim is to ensure that, if all else fails, the state ends up with these losses. Then, when the state has bailed it out, finance can win by shorting the states it has bankrupted. The fourth game is played among states. The aim is to ensure that other countries end up with any excess supply. Surplus countries win by serially bankrupting the private and then public sectors of trading partners. It might be called: “beggaring your neighbours, while feeling moral about it”. It is the game Germany is playing so well in the eurozone.
It’s an article that really does need to be read in full. Martin concludes thus:
Yet it is quite clear that an isolated discussion of the need to reduce fiscal deficits will not work. These cannot be shrunk without resolving the overindebtedness of damaged private sectors, reducing external imbalances, or both.
The games we have been playing have been economically damaging. We will be on the road to recovery, when we start playing better ones.
Now I really don’t want Learning from Dogs to focus on ‘doom and gloom’. There’s more than enough of that to go round twice and thrice.
But when someone writes in such a great clarifying way – then it deserves the widest promulgation. The more we all know about the games being played, the better we can change the rules to benefit society. Well done, Martin.
By Paul Handover
What a fabulous gift to openness!
I subscribe to a Blog that comes with the rather intriguing name of The Gospel According to Rhys. It’s a bit ‘geeky’ for my tastes but it offers sufficiently good advice on Blogging and other Social Media systems that it is a worthwhile entry in to my email in-box.
Anyway, in today’s in-box was a piece from Rhys about WordPress turning 7 years old.
Learning from Dogs is, of course, a WordPress driven Blog and thus is an example of the power of this wonderful software. I trust that Rhys will forgive me if I quote at length from his article – I can’t better it.
Recently it was WordPress’ 7th Birthday. On the 27th of May in 2003, Matt Mullenweg released a fork of b2/cafelog, called WordPress. From the 0.72 release, it’s become the defacto blogging solution for thousands of publishers.I love it, I think it’s great, and although I’m probably preaching to the converted, here’s 7 reasons why I think your blog should be on WordPress.
It’s Free
For what it does, and for amount it costs, it is amazing that it costs nothing. Sure there’s hosting costs & domain names, but there’s nothing stopping you playing with the software for nothing.
It’s Open Source
Fancy yourself as a bit of a coder? Well WordPress is entirely free to see the code. In fact, I recommend playing with WordPress to learn the basics of PHP. There is great documentation (again, open source wiki) to help you with the WordPress framework, itself a great introduction into advanced PHP programming & working with API’s & frameworks.
Furthermore, with it being open source, if a bug is discovered, it’s fixed relatively quickly.
It Is Quick & Easy To Use
WordPress is famous for it’s five minute installation, and when you get good, it should take you half of that time. Logging in you can write a post within a minute, and it’s ridiculously easy to use. Changing design & adding plugins is easy as well.
As CMS’s Goes, It’s Pretty Good for SEO
Out of the box, f0r search engine optimisation, it’s okay. However, with a few tweaks, WordPress becomes a solid SEO platform. It’s certainly one of the better CMS’ out there.
It’s Well Supported
I’m not sure if there’s been a “state of the wordpress community” post ever done, but WordPress itself hosts nearly 10,000 plugins, and there must be tens of thousands of themes available online (WordPress itself only holds about 1 and a half thousand). Each one has a programmer or designer behind it, and although support varies (the official wordpress forum is average at best), enough people know what they are doing, both paid or free, to help you out.
It Can Make You A Rich Man (or Woman)
Whilst I’m not a rich man, running this blog & a few websites on WordPress have allowed me to make some money, and anybody can do this. As well as ebooks, adsense, affiliate marketing & god knows what else, you can make a fortune carrying out WordPress related services for other people.
It’s Never Going To Disappear Overnight
WordPress has some huge sites supporting it, a company fully dedicated to it’s production, and a thriving community. It’s not here today, and gone tomorrow.
So happy birthday WordPress, here’s to the next 7 years!
Well said, Rhys.
By Paul Handover
Rachel Maddow on how we have been here before.
(Thanks to Peter Nauman for this tip.)
Well done the Rachel Maddow on MSNBC-TV.
Watch this YouTube video of a recent show and run out of words!
By Paul Handover
Just enjoy watching these dogs – as good as it can ever be!
(With thanks to Charlie and Tracy for this heads up.)
The Loop in North Wales and a neat gag!
The British Royal Air Force frequently train their air crews in and around the valleys of North Wales. Much of that area is designated a Tactical Training Area. One such route is known as The Loop. Here’s a description of that from the website Warplane.co.uk:
Machynlleth Loop
The most appropriate place to start with is the Machynlleth Loop which is usually referred to by aircrews as ‘The Loop’ although the USAF crews refer to it as ‘The Roundabout’. It is literally a roundabout of flowed valleys running counter-clockwise following the A470 north eastwards from Machynlleth in the south to Dinas Mawddwy then heading north west to join the A487 at the Cross Foxes Inn. From here it follows the A487 southwards through Corris to end back at Machynlleth. Ordnance Survey Explorer Map OL23 is recommended for anyone planning a visit.
It is arguably the busiest part of the UK low fly system and although the cold war days of up to 80 plus movements in a day are long gone it is still sometimes possible to see 30 plus aircraft in one day. The usual daily total is usually between 10 and 20 aircraft mainly made up of Hawks with the odd Tornado, Harrier or Hercules thrown in. It is certainly the place to go to practice your panning technique.
It takes about 3 minutes for a jet aircraft to do a circuit of the Loop and multiple passes by aircraft is not an uncommon sight, especially by Hawks. So whenever you see an aircraft it is worth checking to see if it looks like doing a circuit as you may be lucky enough to see it again in 3 minutes.
Do click on the link if only to view some of the fantastic flying photographs.
Anyway, a couple of British newspapers recently published a piece about an RAF Navigator holding up a sign inside the cockpit for the many amateur photographers who frequent this part of the country.
Here’s an extract from the Daily Mail:
A RAF navigator gave plane-spotters a chuckle as he held up a sign reading ‘I’m with stupid’ with an arrow pointing to the pilot.
The pair were on a training mission in a £13million Tornado GR4 aircraft, capable of reaching 1,400mph, when the navigator pulled the prank as they jetted through a valley in Wales.
Wonderful prank, and wonderful picture taken by Andy Chittock who clearly is rather used to taking a mean photograph!
By Paul Handover
Learning from Dogs 