Happy New Year to You – 2012! This is the time of the year when we all reflect on the last year and our lives in general. We think about what we want to bring in for the new year and reflect on what would be best for our life. It is the perfect time for goal-setting! Here are seven goal-setting tips: 1. Make it a treat! Set up a good mood for your goal-setting time. Create an environment that makes you feel good. Build a fire and pour a glass of wine, sit in the middle of a grove of trees, pick your favorite beach spot, put on some great music, or get snuggled up in your coziest blanket and pour a cup of tea. 2. Set goals for all the main areas of your life. We tend to set the most intense goals in the area where we want to effect the most change. We may set all our goals regarding better finances or fitness and forget to set goals in the other areas of our life. The eight categories we use are: Family & Social, Spiritual & Mental, Physical & Health, Business, Financial, Home & Garden/Yard, Creativity & Educational and Travel. 3. Don’t be too serious. These are your goals. Don’t get analysis-paralysis. Get started and let it flow. 4. Keep it realistic. Set yourself up for success. Create goals that are attainable. You can always change your goals at any time. 5. Create a wish list in addition to your goals. List places you want to go, things you want to do and items you wish to acquire. 6. Have fun with it and dream! Imagine you are limitless. What would you want to do? Set your goals from your mind and your heart. Don't only "think" what you need to do; think about how you "feel" about the goal. Does it feel good, happy or fun? Let your emotions be your guide. 7. Just do it! Goal-setting is one of the most important things to do to transform your life. You may not know where all this "goal-setting stuff" will lead; all you need to know is that it is the next step on your journey of transformation. Things getting stagnant? Have a goal setting session! Other Tips: Write your goals in the positive instead of the negative. Work for what you want, not for what you want to leave behind or what you think just sounds good. Part of the reason why we write down and examine our goals is to create a set of instructions for our subconscious mind to carry out. Your subconscious mind is a very efficient tool, it can not determine right from wrong and it does not judge. It's only function is to carry out its instructions. The more positive instructions you give it, the more positive results you will get. GOAL: Gratitude Offers Abundant Living. Start a gratitude journal. Before going to bed write down five things you are grateful for. SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Timely. The SMART acronym is helpful in getting your goals written out in complete detail. One of the great secrets of esoteric studies is to keep it to yourself. Unless someone is critical to helping you achieve your goal(s), do not freely share with others. The negative attitude from friends, family and neighbors can drag your energy away from success. Of course our favorite thing to include in goal setting is vehicle maintenance: Your car needs you and you depend on your car. Happy Goal setting/achieving!
Well, just when we think Google has run out of surprises, we learn from John Markoff at The New York Times that a small team of Google engineers has been quietly running robots on our highways. Not just one or two robots sneaking a few miles down a lonely country road late at night, but eight autonomous vehicles traveling more than 140,000 miles in the last year on everything from freeways to traffic-clogged downtown districts. Google’s car-bots have confidently traversed roads that would leave many drivers white-knuckled, from San Francisco’s pretzel-twisty Lombard Street to Big Sur’s narrow, cliff-hugging Highway One. Sebastian Thrun and his Google Team have accomplished something that even the most optimistic experts in the field thought was five to 10 years off. Little wonder that Thrun’s team jokingly refers to the effort as their “Drive-thru Manhattan Project.” Before word of Google’s robot surprise, the consensus among researchers was that autonomous robotic cars would not be commonplace on our highways for at least two decades. That number will now have to be revised downward, but it would be a mistake to expect robocars to start appearing in auto showrooms any time soon. Barriers range from regulatory anxieties to the auto industry’s famously conservative engineering culture, and more than a few daunting technical challenges. The good news is that near-robotic vehicles are just around the corner and they are guaranteed to deliver more than their share of surprise along with some very tangible benefits. Here are a few developments that I think are especially likely in the near future:
Better sensors and artificial intelligence will deliver adaptive cruise control capable of responding to sudden slowdowns and anticipating fog-hidden pileups. These systems will link to data in the cloud (like Google Maps and Street View) to provide smart real-time hazard identification, routing and warnings when drivers are speeding above posted limits. Our cars will chide us if we tailgate and watch us as we drive and jolt us awake if are distracted or drifting off to sleep. We can already buy cars that parallel park, but Sebastian’s team overcame an even greater challenge, teaching their car-bots to merge into freeway traffic. Merging is a social activity that combines manners with Newtonian physics at 60 mph at a point typically located in a driver’s blind spot. Anyone who has been cut off by some jerk refusing to let them in, or tripped up by an over-polite driver slowing down to make space, knows just how complex this problem is. Google’s car-bots have perfect peripheral vision, software that reads the body language of the other cars and most importantly, no ego.
Imagine a military convoy comprised of a single human-controlled lead vehicle and a line of unmanned autonomous supply vehicles obediently following behind like a line elephants in a circus.
Why buy a car when you can subscribe to one? Sebastian Thrun even thinks we can create a service where instead of picking up your car in a nearby parking space, the driverless car will come to you like a well-trained spaniel. We want to say thank you to one of our customers, Ray S., who lead us to this piece by Paul Saffo – of which we liberally used for this article.
When you want to see a movie and your little brother/sister wants to tag along, I hope you'll let him/her. I hope you have to walk uphill to school with your friends and that you live in a town where you can do it safely. On rainy days when you have to catch a ride, I hope you don't ask your driver to drop you two blocks away so you won't be seen riding with someone as uncool as your Mom. If you want a slingshot, I hope your Dad teaches you how to make one instead of buying one. I hope you learn to dig in the dirt and read books. When you learn to use computers, I hope you also learn to add and subtract in your head..... I hope you get teased by your friends when you have your first crush on a boy/girl, and when you talk back to your mother that you learn what ivory soap tastes like. May you skin your knee climbing a mountain, burn your hand on a stove and stick your tongue on a frozen flagpole. I don't care if you try a beer once, but I hope you don't like it.. And if a friend offers you dope or a joint, I hope you realize he is not your friend. I sure hope you make time to sit on a porch with your Grandma/Grandpa and go fishing with your Uncle. May you feel sorrow at a funeral and joy during the holidays. I hope your mother punishes you when you throw a baseball through your neighbor's window and that she hugs you and kisses you at Hanukkah/Christmas time when you give her a plaster mold of your hand. These things I wish for you - tough times and disappointment, hard work and happiness. To me, it's the only way to appreciate life.... Written with a pen. Sealed with a kiss. I'm here for you. And if I die before you do, I'll go to heaven and wait for you. We secure our friends, not by accepting favors, but by doing them. Paul Harvey RIDDLE: When asked this riddle, 80% of kindergarten kids got the answer, compared to 17% of Stanford University seniors. "What is greater than God, More evil than the devil, The poor have it, The rich need it, And if you eat it, you'll die?" The answer to the riddle is "nothing." Nothing is greater than God. Nothing is more evil than the Devil. The poor have nothing. The rich need nothing. And if you eat nothing, you'll die.
Subject: PARAPROSDOKIANS PARAPROSDOKIANS "paraprosdokian": "Figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected; frequently used in a humorous situation." "Where there's a will, I want to be in it," is a type of paraprosdokian. 1. Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience. 2. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it's still on my list. 3. Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak. 4. If I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong. 5. We never really grow up; we only learn how to act in public. 6. War does not determine who is right - only who is left. 7. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad. 8. Evening news is where they begin with 'Good Evening,' and then proceed to tell you why it isn't. 9. To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research. 10. A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station. 11. I thought I wanted a career. Turns out I just wanted paychecks. 12. Whenever I fill out an application, in the part that says, 'In case of emergency, notify:' I put 'DOCTOR.' 13. I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you. 14. Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy. 15. Behind every successful man is his woman. Behind the fall of a successful man is usually another woman. 16. A clear conscience is the sign of a fuzzy memory. 17. I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn't work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness. 18. You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice. 19. Money can't buy happiness, but it sure makes misery easier to live with. 20. There's a fine line between cuddling and holding someone down so they can't get away. 21. I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not so sure. 22. You're never too old to learn something stupid. 23. To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target. 24. Nostalgia isn't what it used to be. 25. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine. 26. Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car. 27. A diplomat is someone who tells you to go to hell in such a way that you look forward to the trip. 28. Hospitality is making your guests feel at home even when you wish they were. 29. I always take life with a grain of salt. Plus a slice of lemon, and a shot of tequila. 30. When tempted to fight fire with fire, remember that the Fire Department usually uses water.
Words of Wisdom: "The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese." "Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass; it's about learning to dance in the rain."
Subject: Generation Y explained
People born before 1946 were called The Silent generation..
- People born between 1946 and 1964 are called The Baby Boomers.,
- People born between 1965 and 1979 are called Generation X, .
- And people born between 1980 and 2010 are called Generation Y ,
Why do we call the last group Generation Y?
But a cartoonist explained it very eloquently below...