Terms And Conditions For Building Quotes

Jesus never concealed the fact that his religion included a demand as well as an offer. Indeed, the demand was as total as the offer was free. If he offered men his salvation, he also demanded their submission. He gave no encouragement whatever to thoughtless applicants for discipleship. He brought no pressure to bear on any inquirer. He sent irresponsible enthusiasts away empty. Luke tells of three men who either volunteered, or were invited, to follow Jesus; but no one passed the Lord’s test. The rich young ruler, too, moral, earnest and attractive, who wanted eternal life on his own terms, went away sorrowful, with his riches intact but with neither life nor Christ as his possession…The Christian landscape is strewn with the wreckage of derelict, half built towers—the ruins of those who began to build and were unable to finish. For thousands of people still ignore Christ’s warning and undertake to follow him without first pausing to reflect on the cost of doing so. The result is the great scandal of Christendom today, so called “nominal Christianity.” In countries to which Christian civilization has spread, large numbers of people have covered themselves with a decent, but thin, veneer of Christianity. They have allowed themselves to become somewhat involved, enough to be respectable but not enough to be uncomfortable. Their religion is a great, soft cushion. It protects them from the hard unpleasantness of life, while changing its place and shape to suit their convenience. No wonder the cynics speak of hypocrites in the church and dismiss religion as escapism…The message of Jesus was very different. He never lowered his standards or modified his conditions to make his call more readily acceptable. He asked his first disciples, and he has asked every disciple since, to give him their thoughtful and total commitment. Nothing less than this will do

In general, we imagine rivers to be subject to a kind of dynamic equilibrium, largely stable geologic features, with processes like regional incision or subtle shifts in mountain building causing short- and medium-term variation around some slowly changing mean condition, but in fact it is far more common to see dramatic change over short periods, with long periods of stability between in what geologists refer to as 'dynamic metastable equilibrium.' It is the same with families, memory, the history of a person's life, what we believe to be true.

In terms of building neural structure, what matters is not the event or circumstance or condition itself but your experience of it. Knowing without feeling is like a menu without a meal.

It was in Cleveland that Magic Slim became the most successful pornographic film producer in America. His training center was a key link in a human trafficking supply chain stretching from the former Soviet Republics in Eastern Europe to the United States. Trafficking accounts for an estimated $32 billion in annual trade with sex slavery and pornographic film production accounting for the greatest percentage. The girls arrived at Slim’s building young and naive, they left older and wiser. This was a classic value chain with each link making a contribution.  Slim’s trainers were the best, and it showed in the final product. Each class of girls was judged on the merits. The fast learners went on to advanced training. They learned proper etiquette, social skills and party games. They learned how to dress, apply makeup and discuss world events.  Best in-class were advertised in international style magazines with code words. These codes were known only to select clients and certain intermediaries approved by Slim. This elaborate distribution system was part of Slim’s business model, his clients paid an annual subscription fee for the on-line dictionary. The code words and descriptions were revised monthly.  An interested client would pay an access fee for further information that included a set of professional  photographs, a video and voice recordings of the model addressing the client by name.  Should the client accept, a detailed travel itinerary was submitted calling for first class travel and accommodation.  Slim required a letter of understanding spelling out terms and conditions and a 50% deposit. He didn’t like contracts, his word was his bond, everyone along the chain knew that. Slim's business was booming.

Much of the so-called environmental movement today has transmuted into an aggressively nefarious and primitive faction. In the last fifteen years, many of the tenets of utopian statism have coalesced around something called the “degrowth” movement. Originating in Europe but now taking a firm hold in the United States, the “degrowthers,” as I shall characterize them, include in their ranks none other than President Barack Obama. On January 17, 2008, Obama made clear his hostility toward, of all things, electricity generated from coal and coal-powered plants. He told the San Francisco Chronicle, “You know, when I was asked earlier about the issue of coal . . . under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. . . .”3 Obama added, “. . . So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all the greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.”4 Degrowthers define their agenda as follows: “Sustainable degrowth is a downscaling of production and consumption that increases human well-being and enhances ecological conditions and equity on the planet. It calls for a future where societies live within their ecological means, with open localized economies and resources more equally distributed through new forms of democratic institutions.”5 It “is an essential economic strategy to pursue in overdeveloped countries like the United States—for the well-being of the planet, of underdeveloped populations, and yes, even of the sick, stressed, and overweight ‘consumer’ populations of overdeveloped countries.”6 For its proponents and adherents, degrowth has quickly developed into a pseudo-religion and public-policy obsession. In fact, the degrowthers insist their ideology reaches far beyond the environment or even its odium for capitalism and is an all-encompassing lifestyle and governing philosophy. Some of its leading advocates argue that “Degrowth is not just an economic concept. We shall show that it is a frame constituted by a large array of concerns, goals, strategies and actions. As a result, degrowth has now become a confluence point where streams of critical ideas and political action converge.”7 Degrowth is “an interpretative frame for a social movement, understood as the mechanism through which actors engage in a collective action.”8 The degrowthers seek to eliminate carbon sources of energy and redistribute wealth according to terms they consider equitable. They reject the traditional economic reality that acknowledges growth as improving living conditions generally but especially for the impoverished. They embrace the notions of “less competition, large scale redistribution, sharing and reduction of excessive incomes and wealth.”9 Degrowthers want to engage in polices that will set “a maximum income, or maximum wealth, to weaken envy as a motor of consumerism, and opening borders (“no-border”) to reduce means to keep inequality between rich and poor countries.”10 And they demand reparations by supporting a “concept of ecological debt, or the demand that the Global North pays for past and present colonial exploitation in the Global South.”11

A beautiful example of a long-term intention was presented by A. T. Ariyaratane, a Buddhist elder, who is considered to be the Gandhi of Sri Lanka. For seventeen years there had been a terrible civil war in Sri Lanka. At one point, the Norwegians were able to broker peace, and once the peace treaty was in effect, Ariyaratane called the followers of his Sarvodaya movement together. Sarvodaya combines Buddhist principles of right livelihood, right action, right understanding, and compassion and has organized citizens in one-third of that nation’s villages to dig wells, build schools, meditate, and collaborate as a form of spiritual practice. Over 650,000 people came to the gathering to hear how he envisioned the future of Sri Lanka. At this gathering he proposed a five-hundred-year peace plan, saying, “The Buddha teaches we must understand causes and conditions. It’s taken us five hundred years to create the suffering that we are in now.” Ari described the effects of four hundred years of colonialism, of five hundred years of struggle between Hindus, Muslims, and Buddhists, and of several centuries of economic disparity. He went on, “It will take us five hundred years to change these conditions.” Ariyaratane then offered solutions, proposing a plan to heal the country. The plan begins with five years of cease-fire and ten years of rebuilding roads and schools. Then it goes on for twenty-five years of programs to learn one another’s languages and cultures, and fifty years of work to right economic injustice, and to bring the islanders back together as a whole. And every hundred years there will be a grand council of elders to take stock on how the plan is going. This is a sacred intention, the long-term vision of an elder. In the same way, if we envision the fulfillment of wisdom and compassion in the United States, it becomes clear that the richest nation on earth must provide health care for its children; that the most productive nation on earth must find ways to combine trade with justice; that a creative society must find ways to grow and to protect the environment and plan sustainable development for generations ahead. A nation founded on democracy must bring enfranchisement to all citizens at home and then offer the same spirit of international cooperation and respect globally. We are all in this together.

I wonder how they will like Maria in Missoula, Montana? That is if I can get a job back in Missoula. I suppose that I am ticketed as a Red there now for good and will be on the general blacklist. Though you never know. You never can tell. They've no proof of what you do, and as a matter of fact they would never believe it if you told them, and my passport was valid for Spain before they issued the restrictions. The time for getting back will not be until the fall of thirty-seven. I left in the summer of thirty-six and though the leave is for a year you do not need to be back until the fall term opens in the following year. There is a lot of time between now and the fall term. There is a lot of time between now and the day after tomorrow if you want to put it that way. No. I think there is no need to worry about the university. Just you turn up there in the fall and it will be all right. Just try and turn up there. But it has been a strange life for a long time now. Damned if it hasn't. Spain was your work and your job, so being in Spain was natural and sound. You had worked summers on engineering projects and in the forest service building roads and in the park and learned to handle powder, so the demolition was a sound and normal job too. Always a little hasty, but sound. Once you accept the idea of demolition as a problem it is only a problem. But there was plenty that was not so good that went with it although God knows you took it easily enough. There was the constant attempt to approximate the conditions of successful assassination that accompanied the demolition. Did big words make it more defensible? Did they make killing any more palatable? You took to it a little too readily if you ask me, he told himself. And what you will be like or just exactly what you will be suited for when you leave the service of the Republic is, to me, he thought, extremely doubtful. But my guess is you will get rid of all that by writing about it, he said. Once you write it down it is all gone. It will be a good book if you can write it. Much better than the other. But in the meantime all the life you have or ever will have is today, tonight, tomorrow, today, tonight, tomorrow, over and over again (I hope), he thought and so you had better take what time there is and be very thankful for it. If the bridge goes bad. It does not look too good just now.

Here is what one sexual abuse survivor told me about his practice: "I tend to go into these four-day funks of self- destruction. My therapist showed me a diagram with baseline emotions for people who have not suffered trauma, and superimposed over it a diagram of baseline emotions for pople who have. Apparently people who have suffered severe traume build neuropathways that lead them to predict traumatic events and then react to them, even if they aren't happening, and the fucks people up their entire lives. She believes it's my yoga practice and daily zazen that keeps my funks to four, maybe five days, instead of lasting for months, or even years. She went on to explain a bit about neurogenesis and studies being done right now about building new neuropathways. I think zazen is beneficial for trauma survivors because it instills in them enough calm and insight to not react in ways that have long-term self-destructive effects. On top of which it builds new neuropathways, rewiring conditioned reactions to trauma, both real and imaginary." We human beings generally subject our brains to a lot of abuse. WE create neural pathways where they are not needed by constantly rehashing pleasurable or painful experiences in order to more fully develop our sense of self.

It is well known that animals respond poorly to living conditions that do not stimulate them mentally or physically. Rats, mice, monkeys, and other mammals confined for long periods in laboratory cages where they have little or no opportunity to engage in such natural behaviors as foraging, hiding, nest-building, or choosing social partners develop neurotic behaviors. Termed “stereotypies,” these behaviors involve repetitive, functionless actions sometimes performed for hours on end. Rodents, for example, will dig for hours at the corners of their cages, gnaw at the bars, or perform repeated somersaults. These “behavioral stereotypies” are estimated to afflict about half of the 100 million mice currently used in laboratory tests and experiments in the United States.16 Monkeys chronically confined to the boredom, stress, and social isolation of laboratory cages perform a wide range of abnormal, disturbing behaviors such as eating or smearing their own excrement, pulling or plucking their hair, slapping themselves, and self-biting that can cause serious, even fatal injury. Severely psychotic human patients display similar behaviors. If you’ve seen the repetitive pacing of caged big cats (and many other smaller animals) at the zoo, you’ve witnessed behavioral stereotypies.

Ocean Acidification is sometimes referred to as Global Warming's Equally Evil Twin. The irony is intentional and fair enough as far as it goes... No single mechanism explains all the mass extinctions in the record and yet changes in ocean chemistry seem to be a pretty good predictor. Ocean Acidification played a role in at least 2 of the Big Five Extinctions: the End-Permian and the End-Triassic. And quite possibly it was a major factor in a third, the End-Cretaceous. ...Why is ocean acidification so dangerous? The question is tough to answer only because the list of reasons is so long. Depending on how tightly organisms are able to regulate their internal chemistry, acidification may affect such basic processes as metabolism, enzyme activity, and protein function. Because it will change the makeup of microbial communities, it will alter the availability of key nutrients, like iron and nitrogen. For similar reasons, it will change the amount of light that passes through the water, and for somewhat different reasons, it will alter the way sound propagates. (In general, acidification is expected to make the seas noisier.) It seems likely to promote the growth of toxic algae. It will impact photosynthesis—many plant species are apt to benefit from elevated CO2 levels—and it will alter the compounds formed by dissolved metals, in some cases in ways that could be poisonous. Of the myriad possible impacts, probably the most significant involves the group of creatures known as calcifiers. (The term calcifier applies to any organism that builds a shell or external skeleton or, in the case of plants, a kind of internal scaffolding out of the mineral calcium carbonate.)... Ocean acidification increases the cost of calcification by reducing the number of carbonate ions available to organisms that build shells or exoskeletons. Imagine trying to build a house while someone keeps stealing your bricks. The more acidified the water, the greater the energy that’s required to complete the necessary steps. At a certain point, the water becomes positively corrosive, and solid calcium carbonate begins to dissolve. This is why the limpets that wander too close to the vents at Castello Aragonese end up with holes in their shells. According to geologists who work in the area, the vents have been spewing carbon dioxide for at least several hundred years, maybe longer. Any mussel or barnacle or keel worm that can adapt to lower pH in a time frame of centuries presumably already would have done so. “You give them generations on generations to survive in these conditions, and yet they’re not there,” Hall-Spencer observed.

Build houses and make yourselves at home. You are not camping. This is your home; make yourself at home. This may not be your favorite place, but it is a place. Dig foundations; construct a habitation; develop the best environment for living that you can. If all you do is sit around and pine for the time you get back to Jerusalem, your present lives will be squalid and empty. Your life right now is every bit as valuable as it was when you were in Jerusalem, and every bit as valuable as it will be when you get back to Jerusalem. Babylonian exile is not your choice, but it is what you are given. Build a Babylonian house and live in it as well as you are able. Put in gardens and eat what grows in the country. Enter into the rhythm of the seasons. Become a productive part of the economy of the place. You are not parasites. Don’t expect others to do it for you. Get your hands into the Babylonian soil. Become knowledgeable about the Babylonian irrigation system. Acquire skill in cultivating fruits and vegetables in this soil and climate. Get some Babylonian recipes and cook them. Marry and have children. These people among whom you are living are not beneath you, nor are they above you; they are your equals with whom you can engage in the most intimate and responsible of relationships. You cannot be the person God wants you to be if you keep yourself aloof from others. That which you have in common is far more significant than what separates you. They are God’s persons: your task as a person of faith is to develop trust and conversation, love and understanding. Make yourselves at home there and work for the country’s welfare. Pray for Babylon’s well-being. If things go well for Babylon, things will go well for you. Welfare: shalom. Shalom means wholeness, the dynamic, vibrating health of a society that pulses with divinely directed purpose and surges with life-transforming love. Seek the shalom and pray for it. Throw yourselves into the place in which you find yourselves, but not on its terms, on God’s terms. Pray. Search for that center in which God’s will is being worked out (which is what we do when we pray) and work from that center. Jeremiah’s letter is a rebuke and a challenge: “Quit sitting around feeling sorry for yourselves. The aim of the person of faith is not to be as comfortable as possible but to live as deeply and thoroughly as possible—to deal with the reality of life, discover truth, create beauty, act out love. You didn’t do it when you were in Jerusalem. Why don’t you try doing it here, in Babylon? Don’t listen to the lying prophets who make an irresponsible living by selling you false hopes. You are in Babylon for a long time. You better make the best of it. Don’t just get along, waiting for some miraculous intervention. Build houses, plant gardens, marry husbands, marry wives, have children, pray for the wholeness of Babylon, and do everything you can to develop that wholeness. The only place you have to be human is where you are right now. The only opportunity you will ever have to live by faith is in the circumstances you are provided this very day: this house you live in, this family you find yourself in, this job you have been given, the weather conditions that prevail at this moment.

The various ways of creating a culture of innovation that we’ve talked about so far are greatly influenced by the leaders at the top. Leaders can’t dictate culture, but they can nurture it. They can generate the right conditions for creativity and innovation. Metaphorically, they can provide the heat and light and moisture and nutrients for a creative culture to blossom and grow. They can focus the best efforts of talented individuals to build innovative, successful groups. In our work at IDEO, we have been lucky enough to meet frequently with CEOs and visionary leaders from both the private and public sectors. Each has his or her own unique style, of course, but the best all have an ability to identify and activate the capabilities of people on their teams. This trait goes far beyond mere charisma or even intelligence. Certain leaders have a knack for nurturing people around them in a way that enables them to be at their best. One way to describe those leaders is to say they are “multipliers,” a term we picked up from talking to author and executive advisor Liz Wiseman. Drawing on a background in organizational behavior and years of experience as a global human resources executive at Oracle Corporation, Liz interviewed more than 150 leaders on four continents to research her book Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter. Liz observes that all leaders lie somewhere on a continuum between diminishers, who exercise tight control in a way that underutilizes their team’s creative talents, and multipliers, who set challenging goals and then help employees achieve the kind of extraordinary results that they themselves may not have known they were capable of.

The Delusion of Lasting Success promises that building an enduring company is not only achievable but a worthwhile objective. Yet companies that have outperformed the market for long periods of time are not just rare, they are statistical artifacts that are observable only in retrospect. Companies that achieved lasting success may be best understood as having strung together many short-term successes. Pursuing a dream of enduring greatness may divert attention from the pressing need to win immediate battles. The Delusion of Absolute Performance diverts our attention from the fact that success and failure always take place in a competitive environment. It may be comforting to believe that our success is entirely up to us, but as the example of Kmart demonstrated, a company can improve in absolute terms and still fall further behind in relative terms. Success in business means doing things better than rivals, not just doing things well. Believing that performance is absolute can cause us to take our eye off rivals and to avoid decisions that, while risky, may be essential for survival given the particular context of our industry and its competitive dynamics. The Delusion of the Wrong End of the Stick lets us confuse causes and effects, actions and outcomes. We may look at a handful of extraordinarily successful companies and imagine that doing what they did can lead to success — when it might in fact lead mainly to higher volatility and a lower overall chance of success. Unless we start with the full population of companies and examine what they all did — and how they all fared — we have an incomplete and indeed biased set of information. The Delusion of Organizational Physics implies that the business world offers predictable results, that it conforms to precise laws. It fuels a belief that a given set of actions can work in all settings and ignores the need to adapt to different conditions: intensity of competition, rate of growth, size of competitors, market concentration, regulation, global dispersion of activities, and much more. Claiming that one approach can work everywhere, at all times, for all companies, has a simplistic appeal but doesn’t do justice to the complexities of business. These points, taken together, expose the principal fiction at the heart of so many business books — that a company can choose to be great, that following a few key steps will predictably lead to greatness, that its success is entirely of its own making and not dependent on factors outside its control.

The Seventh Central Pay Commission was appointed in February 2014 by the Government of India (Ministry of Finance) under the Chairmanship of Justice Ashok Kumar Mathur. The Commission has been given 18 months to make its recommendations. The terms of reference of the Commission are as follows:  1. To examine, review, evolve and recommend changes that are desirable and feasible regarding the principles that should govern the emoluments structure including pay, allowances and other facilities/benefits, in cash or kind, having regard to rationalisation and simplification therein as well as the specialised needs of various departments, agencies and services, in respect of the following categories of employees:-  (i) Central Government employees—industrial and non-industrial; (ii) Personnel belonging to the All India Services; (iii) Personnel of the Union Territories; (iv) Officers and employees of the Indian Audit and Accounts Department; (v) Members of the regulatory bodies (excluding the RBI) set up under the Acts of Parliament; and (vi) Officers and employees of the Supreme Court.   2. To examine, review, evolve and recommend changes that are desirable and feasible regarding the principles that should govern the emoluments structure, concessions and facilities/benefits, in cash or kind, as well as the retirement benefits of the personnel belonging to the Defence Forces, having regard to the historical and traditional parties, with due emphasis on the aspects unique to these personnel.   3. To work out the framework for an emoluments structure linked with the need to attract the most suitable talent to government service, promote efficiency, accountability and responsibility in the work culture, and foster excellence in the public governance system to respond to the complex challenges of modern administration and the rapid political, social, economic and technological changes, with due regard to expectations of stakeholders, and to recommend appropriate training and capacity building through a competency based framework.   4. To examine the existing schemes of payment of bonus, keeping in view, inter-alia, its bearing upon performance and productivity and make recommendations on the general principles, financial parameters and conditions for an appropriate incentive scheme to reward excellence in productivity, performance and integrity.   5. To review the variety of existing allowances presently available to employees in addition to pay and suggest their rationalisation and simplification with a view to ensuring that the pay structure is so designed as to take these into account.   6. To examine the principles which should govern the structure of pension and other retirement benefits, including revision of pension in the case of employees who have retired prior to the date of effect of these recommendations, keeping in view that retirement benefits of all Central Government employees appointed on and after 01.01.2004 are covered by the New Pension Scheme (NPS).   7. To make recommendations on the above, keeping in view:  (i) the economic conditions in the country and the need for fiscal prudence; (ii) the need to ensure that adequate resources are available for developmental expenditures and welfare measures; (iii) the likely impact of the recommendations on the finances of the state governments, which usually adopt the recommendations with some modifications; (iv) the prevailing emolument structure and retirement benefits available to employees of Central Public Sector Undertakings; and (v) the best global practices and their adaptability and relevance in Indian conditions.   8. To recommend the date of effect of its recommendations on all the above.

Sticking with the $2 trillion infrastructure proposal, MMT would have us begin by asking if it would be safe for Congress to authorize $2 trillion in new spending without offsets. A careful analysis of the economy’s existing (and anticipated) slack would guide lawmakers in making that determination. If the CBO and other independent analysts concluded it would risk pushing inflation above some desired inflation rate, then lawmakers could begin to assemble a menu of options to identify the most effective ways to mitigate that risk. Perhaps one-third, one-half, or three-fourths of the spending would need to be offset. It’s also possible that none would require offsets. Or perhaps the economy is so close to its full employment potential that PAYGO is the right policy. The point is, Congress should work backward to arrive at the answer rather than beginning with the presumption that every new dollar of spending needs to be fully offset. That helps to protect us from unwarranted tax increases and undesired inflation. It also ensures that there is always a check on any new spending. The best way to fight inflation is before it happens. In one sense, we have gotten lucky. Congress routinely makes large fiscal commitments without pausing to evaluate inflation risks. It can add hundreds of billions of dollars to the defense budget or pass tax cuts that add trillions to the fiscal deficit over time, and for the most part, we come out unscathed—at least in terms of inflation. That’s because there’s normally enough slack to absorb bigger deficits. Although excess capacity has served as a sort of insurance policy against a Congress that ignores inflation risk, maintaining idle resources comes at a price. It depresses our collective well-being by depriving us of the array of things we could have enjoyed if we had put our resources to good use. MMT aims to change that. MMT is about harnessing the power of the public purse to build an economy that lives up to its full potential while maintaining appropriate checks on that power. No one would think of Spider-Man as a superhero if he refused to use his powers to protect and serve. With great power comes great responsibility. The power of the purse belongs to all of us. It is wielded by democratically elected members of Congress, but we should think of it as a power that exists to serve us all. Overspending is an abuse of power, but so is refusing to act when more can be done to elevate the human condition without risking inflation.

regardless of the details of the agent’s interior apparatus, a cas agent can always be defined in terms of a set of signal-processing rules called classifier rules. Each rule accepts certain signals as inputs (specified by the condition part of the rule) and then processes the signals to produce outgoing signals (the action part of the rule). Formally, both signals and boundaries can be defined using strings of “letters” drawn from one basic “alphabet.” This limited alphabet has a counterpart in cellular biology, where both the structure of protein signals and important parts of “gateways” in semi- permeable membranes are defined using an alphabet of twenty amino acids.

Let me get this straight. One four-hex to thirty billion, in one year.” “I’ll do it in six months.” Richard said. “You wish to wager?” Roland grinned. “Usual terms?” “Usual. Double the term, or swap now.” Roland tapped the ebony table. “One condition.” “Name it,” Richard snapped. “I get to pick the bum.” It was raining, which was not exactly uncommon for the southern part of Texatron City, and it was nighttime, which occurred roughly once every day. Neon-clad shops lined one half of the main boulevard, while the ramshackle favela perched on the other. Above those precarious dwellings, jutting out of the hillside like challenging chins, luxurious villas that housed the favela’s bosses boasted panoramic glass infinity pools and helipads. Upon the very peak of the great hill, above even those villas, a single, sprawling building sat, lost to the smog-laden rain. Terisco dwelled there, and Terisco was death, plain and simple. Fortunately, there was very little reason for Jayden to ever cross paths with Terisco or any of his lieutenants. He kept his head down. He did his job. He paid his dues. Jayden had a very good chance of living a hard, skinny, but quiet life. That was unless fate meddled, or luck gave him a sharp kick in the

But however desirable an evolutionary framework for a history of knowledge may be, the important questions is whether it is actually possible to recognize an evolutionary logic in the historical records - without imposing it by an exaggerated analogy with biology and without ascending to a level of abstraction where all cats become gray. I believe that the historical findings examined in the preceding chapters point in such a direction, in particular the long-term, cumulative aspects of knowledge development, its dependence on contingent societal contexts, and the profound transformations of the architecture of knowledge. Examples are the emergence of new systems of knowledge from a reorganization of preceding systems; the sedimentation and plateau-building processes of knowledge economies; the transformation of contingent circumstances and challenges into internal conditions for the further development of knowledge systems, accounting for the path dependency and layered structure of this development; and the feedback mechanisms that may arise between knowledge economies and knowledge systems, giving rise to the emergence of new epistemic communities. Just like the evolution of life, knowledge development has direction but us not globally uniform. It is neither deterministic nor teleological. Chance events may have long-term effects by becoming incorporated into the developmental process. Knowledge development is self-referential insofar as it contributes to shaping its own environment by processes of sedimentation and plateau formation corresponding to niche construction in biology. It is also a layered process, in the sense that later forms of knowledge do not necessarily replace earlier ones. External representations shape the long-term transmission of knowledge, ensuring its continuity, while their exploration under different circumstances opens up possibilities for variation and change.

A conception of a cognitive capacity can qualify as unrestricted in aspiration and yet be insufficiently capacious in conception. A conception of a capacity, in aspiring not to go outside the order to which the capacity belongs so as to explain the capacity, may unwittingly frame its conception of the target capacity in terms that sever it from the conditions required for its genuine possession. This is a difficult balance to strike correctly in philosophy. Frege is concerned with not admitting anything psychological into his conception of the logical. This is the mark of the unrestrictedness of his aspiration - his refusal to admit anything external to the order of logic in his account of logic. But he builds his guardrail of protection against falling into the psychological sufficiently far in from the actual danger point that he severs the unity of our capacity for knowledge. Hence the need for a de-psychologizing of Frege's conception of the psychological.

When condominiums don’t meet government-backed lenders’ standards they become non-warrantable. This means that buyers cannot get standard loans for these properties. They will have to pay cash or pay exorbitant rates through private lenders. When a building is full of non-warrantable condos, the pool of buyers shrinks and lowers the condo’s value. One might think that newer projects would have lower maintenance costs than older projects. But this isn’t always true. Some builders set monthly fees low while they advertise the project. This attracts bargain buyers, but owners soon discover they have inadequate reserves. The monthly fees then skyrocket. Even if the homeowners successfully sue the builder, it is hard to sell any properties while litigation is pending, and values drop. Most states have specific forms for condominium transactions in which the association discloses finances and reserves. Buyers must sign and verify they have examined the financial condition of the project. Pay attention to past history. How old is the roof? When were improvements last made? How often do association dues increase? Even though many people don’t investigate these issues, a home’s value depends on them. CHAPTER 7 BANK FINANCING Banks have a new image. Now you have ‘a friend,’ your friendly banker. If the banks are so friendly, how come they chain down the pens? — Alan King Bank lending standards and terms change daily. This chapter provides general principles that should prove useful over the long term. We will examine how to borrow from banks to acquire or refinance a home. Please note the term “banks” as used here includes credit unions and other major financial institutions. There’s another chapter on non-bank lending to help those who don’t meet the criteria set by major lending institutions.

I feel like a fool.” “You aren’t.” “I don’t want to be this person. God! I feel like you’ve been trying to pick me up off the floor for weeks!” “You’ve had a string of really shitty luck, honey.” I laughed. And it turned to tears again. My phone buzzed on the coffee table where I’d set it down. I don’t think I can handle more of Jonathan wanting to talk. What more was there to say? When I didn’t move toward the phone, Logek picked it up and looked at the screen. She turned it toward me so that I could see. Adam. “Shall we read it?” I shrugged and started crying again. Who gives a shit what he has to say? Logek looked at the screen and frowned. She read it aloud. “The tragic marble fortress is going to bed. See you tomorrow, yes?” Logek just looked at me with lowered brows, waiting to see if I would explain. I sniffed, then straightened my shoulders. Time to pull yourself up, Kate. This fragile, damaged girl is not you. I blew out a long sigh. “Let’s see. We got into it a little after work when he followed me out of the building. I sort of gave him my ‘you’re a broken toy and I’m not the least bit interested in a cold fish like you’ speech. I guess he was wondering if it would be enough to make me quit.” Logek, god love her, dropped her head back onto the couch and started laughing

1.​YOUR LOVE RELATIONSHIP. This is the measure of how happy you are in your current state of relationship—whether you’re single and loving it, in a relationship, or desiring one. 2.​YOUR FRIENDSHIPS. This is the measure of how strong a support network you have. Do you have at least five people who you know have your back and whom you love being around? 3.​YOUR ADVENTURES. How much time do you get to travel, experience the world, and do things that open you to new experiences and excitement? 4.​YOUR ENVIRONMENT. This is the quality of your home, your car, your work, and in general the spaces where you spend your time—even when traveling. 5.​YOUR HEALTH AND FITNESS. How would you rate your health, given your age, and any physical conditions? 6.​YOUR INTELLECTUAL LIFE. How much and how fast are you growing and learning? How many books do you read? How many seminars or courses do you take yearly? Education should not stop after you graduate from college. 7.​YOUR SKILLS. How fast are you improving the skills you have that make you unique and help you build a successful career? Are you growing toward mastery or are you stagnating? 8.​YOUR SPIRITUAL LIFE. How much time do you devote to spiritual, meditative, or contemplative practices that keep you feeling connected, balanced, and peaceful? 9.​YOUR CAREER. Are you growing, climbing the ladder, and excelling? Or do you feel you’re stuck in a rut? If you have a business, is it thriving or stagnating? 10.​YOUR CREATIVE LIFE. Do you paint, write, play musical instruments, or engage in any other activity that helps you channel your creativity? Or are you more of a consumer than a creator? 11.​YOUR FAMILY LIFE. Do you love coming home to your family after a hard day’s work? If you’re not married or a parent, define your family as your parents and siblings. 12.​YOUR COMMUNITY LIFE. Are you giving, contributing, and playing a definite role in your community?

What are you trying to buy? Asset type? Size? Price? To determine the answer to the first question, do the following: Start with your own net worth. Add in friends and family. The total team net worth is your starting point. Choose a market. Consider travel time and expense. You must be able to be in your market to look at deals at least once a month. Determine the viability of your market. Job growth? Population growth? Get deal flow from the market. Real estate agents Find all commercial realty companies in the city. Get on all their mailing lists. Analyze deals online from realtors in the area. Call the realtors about their listings. Direct to owners Get lists of owners. Create a system to reach owners directly. Mail Text Cold calling Analyze deals. Income approach Income – Expenses = Net operating income Net operating income – Debt service = Cash flow Check with lenders for current terms on debt. What is the CoC return? Cap rate? Debt ratio? Comparable data Check the analyzed cap rate against cap rates in the area for similar properties. Check comparable sale prices. Comps should be close in size and age to the subject property. Comps should have similar amenities. Comps should be within a few miles of the subject property. Exit Hold and operate. Refinance. Sell or flip. Consider upcoming market conditions. Debt Check with lenders or a mortgage broker to determine the availability of loans for this type of property. What are the terms and conditions? Is this the information you used to analyze the deal originally? Make the offer. Use an LOI to submit the offer in writing. The LOI will summarize the main deal points. If your offer is less than 15 percent of the asking price, speak with the realtor before you submit the offer. Once the offer is accepted, send the LOI to your attorney and have them draft the purchase agreement. Draft the purchase and sale agreement. Now that you have a fully executed contract, the clock starts. Earnest money goes into escrow. Do your due diligence. Financial inspection Physical inspection Lease audit Begin your loan application. The lender will complete three inspections. Appraisal Environmental inspection Physical engineer inspection of the buildings Do your closing. The lender will wire the loan proceeds to the closing escrow. Wire your down payment funds to the closing escrow. You own a new property! Engage property management for takeover of operations.

We can see American English downtown in any city in the States. We would look up a block of “apartments” to a “penthouse,” be deluged by the “mass media,” go into a “chain store,” breakfast on “cornflakes,” avoid the “hot dog,” see the “commuters” walking under strips of “neon,” not “jaywalking,” which would be “moronic,” but if they were “executives” or “go-getters” (not “yes-men” or “fat cats”), they would be after “big business,” though unlikely to have much to do with an “assembly line” or a “closed shop.” There’s likely to be a “traffic jam,” so no “speeding,” certainly no space for “joy-riding” and the more “underpasses” the better. And of course in any downtown city we would be surrounded by a high forest of “skyscrapers.” “Skyscraper” started life as an English naval term — a high light sail to catch the breeze in calm conditions. It was the name of the Derby winner in 1788, after which tall houses became generally called skyscrapers. Later it was a kind of hat, then slang for a very tall person. The word arrived in America as a baseball term, meaning a ball hit high in the air. Now its world meaning is very tall building, as typified by those in American cities. Then you could go into a “hotel” (originally French for a large private house) and find a “lobby” (adopted from English), find the “desk clerk” and the “bell boy,” nod to the “hat-check girl” as you go to the “elevator.” Turn on the television, flick it all about and you’re bound to find some “gangsters” with their “floozies” in their “glad rags.” In your bedroom, where the English would have “bedclothes,” the Americans have “covers”; instead of a “dressing gown” you’ll find a “bathrobe,” “drapes” rather than “curtains,” a “closet” not a “wardrobe,” and in the bathroom a “tub” with a “faucet” and not a “bath” with a “tap.

I believe that many of the most tragic episodes of state development in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries originate in a particularly pernicious combination of three elements. The first is the aspiration to the administrative ordering of nature and society, an aspiration that we have already seen at work in scientific forestry, but one raised to a far more comprehensive and ambitious level. “High modernism” seems an appropriate term for this aspiration.3 As a faith, it was shared by many across a wide spectrum of political ideologies. Its main carriers and exponents were the avant-garde among engineers, planners, technocrats, high-level administrators, architects, scientists, and visionaries. If one were to imagine a pantheon or Hall of Fame of high-modernist figures, it would almost certainly include such names as Henri Comte de Saint-Simon, Le Corbusier, Walther Rathenau, Robert McNamara, Robert Moses, Jean Monnet, the Shah of Iran, David Lilienthal, Vladimir I. Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and Julius Nyerere.4 They envisioned a sweeping, rational engineering of all aspects of social life in order to improve the human condition. As a conviction, high modernism was not the exclusive property of any political tendency; it had both right- and left-wing variants, as we shall see. The second element is the unrestrained use of the power of the modern state as an instrument for achieving these designs. The third element is a weakened or prostrate civil society that lacks the capacity to resist these plans. The ideology of high modernism provides, as it were, the desire; the modern state provides the means of acting on that desire; and the incapacitated civil society provides the leveled terrain on which to build (dis)utopias.

It is true that scientists and doctors use the word clinically, and it is also true that patients and their loved ones don’t always know what to make of it, especially when they first receive the diagnosis. It is too imprecise, for one thing. Dementia can be a spectrum, ranging from mild to severe, and some of the causes of dementia are entirely reversible. Alzheimer’s disease, which accounts for more than half the cases of dementia, gets nearly all the attention, and as a result, the terms dementia and Alzheimer’s are often used interchangeably. They shouldn’t be. The word dementia, however, is steeped in our common vernacular, and so is the association with Alzheimer’s disease. In this book, I use both terms with the hope that the conversation, and the words we use to describe the broad condition of cognitive decline, will shift in the future.

Dave and the others walked around the building. The building was surrounded by clumps of bushes and vines grew up its walls, but it looked like it had once had a lovely garden. When they reached the other side of the building, they saw a minecart track. It led from inside the building and then went off across the savanna, disappearing into the distance. The track seemed to lead right up to the huge white walls. The minecart track was twice as wide as they usually were. Suddenly an old music box embedded into one of the walls crackled into life, almost making Dave jump out of his skin. “Welcome to Redstone Land Station!” said a recorded voice. “You’re about to have the most fantastic vacation of your life, enjoying all the fun rides and experiences that our theme park has to offer. Ride on a rollercoaster! Stay at our luxury hotels! Chill out by our swimming pools! Or, if you’re feeling adventurous, why not join one of our tour groups and take a two-day horse ride to Bedrock City? This mysterious city has been abandoned for centuries. What kind of people used to live there? Nobody knows! But what we do know is that our Bedrock City tours are a fantastic deal — only forty emeralds per person, and kids get to go free! And if you’re feeling even more adventurous, you can take one of our tours to the Far Lands. Yes, beyond Bedrock City is one of the four edges of the world, a mysterious place where anything can happen! But I’m getting ahead of myself. For now, jump on the train and enjoy the leisurely ride to Redstone Land. The buffet carriage is at the back and is stocked with delicious food and drink! Terms and conditions apply. Redstone Land is not responsible for any injuries or loss of life experienced during one of our Bedrock City or Far Lands tours.” “Okay, that was weird,” said Carl. Suddenly the old music box spluttered into life once more and began to play the same message: “Welcome to Redstone Land Station! You’re about to have the most fantastic — “ WHAM! Carl slammed one of his golem fists into the music box, making it go POOF. A record fell out, and Carl picked it up and flung it across the savanna.

Cook had seen an avocado before, but not like this---so smooth, so green. The fruit took an express route to the greenhouse, where workers propagated the seeds, first in soil, and then suspended slightly in water. Fairchild had included written instructions that only mature trees would fruit, after several years, not months. He advised that as soon as the seedlings grew reasonable roots, they should be shipped to experiment stations in California to be shared with farmers interested in experimental crops. Cook complied, and then mostly forgot about the avocado. In California, that single shipment helped build an industry. Other avocados turned up as well, from travelers or tourists who packed the oversized seeds as souvenirs. There were one-off stories that avocados had been spotted in America before, in Hollywood in 1886 or near Miami in 1894. But none were as sturdy as Fairchild's Chilean variety, prized for its versatility, color, and flavor---résumé of strong pedigree. Fairchild's avocado would turn out to be a mix of a Guatemalan avocado and a Mexican avocado and to have been only a short-term tenant in Chilean soil before Fairchild picked it up. But as with most popular fruits, the true geographic origin faded into irrelevance. Farmers and early geneticists dissected this sample and ones that came after it to create newer cultivars attuned to more specialized climates or tastes. This work yielded a twentieth-century variety called Fuerte, Spanish for "strong," growable in the coldest conditions ever tested on an avocado. It fell from favor after proving unable to ship even modest distances without bruising.

I remind people that financial IQ is made up of knowledge from four broad areas of expertise: 1.​Accounting Accounting is financial literacy or the ability to read numbers. This is a vital skill if you want to build an empire. The more money you are responsible for, the more accuracy is required, or the house comes tumbling down. This is the left-brain side, or the details. Financial literacy is the ability to read and understand financial statements which allows you to identify the strengths and weaknesses of any business. 2.​Investing Investing is the science of “money making money.” This involves strategies and formulas that use the creative right-brain side. 3.​Understanding markets Understanding markets is the science of supply and demand. You need to know the technical aspects of the market, which are emotion-driven, in addition to the fundamental or economic aspects of an investment. Does an investment make sense or does it not make sense based on current market conditions? 4.​The law A corporation wrapped around the technical skills of accounting, investing, and markets can contribute to explosive growth. A person who understands the tax advantages and protections provided by a corporation can get rich so much faster than someone who is an employee or a small-business sole proprietor. It’s like the difference between someone walking and someone flying. The difference is profound when it comes to long-term wealth.

We talk a big game and never discuss our insecurities or doubts. It’s all about the appearance of belief. But when push comes to shove, this external variety fails. True confidence has to be founded in reality, and it comes from the inside. It’s not in ignoring the human condition of experiencing doubt and insecurity, but coming to terms with them and what you’re capable of. It’s not in the elimination of doubt, but in allowing enough doubt to keep us in check, while being secure in the knowledge that we’ll find a way past the obstacle in our way. For far too long we’ve correctly insisted on the value of confidence, but we’ve gone along building the wrong kind.

highly engaged employees will remain motivated despite adverse circumstances, such as limited resources, equipment failures, time pressures, and so on. In contrast, employees with low levels of engagement will tend to appear motivated only under favorable conditions or when attempting to reach tangible, short-term goals that will yield personal reward.

Prepare drones," Metatron commanded. Nephilim grabbed her backpack and put it on the ground beside her feet. She opened it and revealed a black metallic cube. It made a soft click as it came to life. Within seconds it enfolded itself and turned into a flying drone—slightly resembling a black firefly—that was about the size of a small eagle. It hovered next to Nephilim's head, humming softly. Each one of the soldiers had unique drones, directly linked to their neural system. Some drones had flying capabilities, others resembled ground predators in the form of insects or mammals. To be able to simultaneously, mentally control a drone during actual combat was difficult, required years of practice, and brought the term multi-tasking to a whole new level. However, once mastered, it was an incredibly effective combat tool. Nephilim held still and waited for the commander to order the assault. She wasn't excited or scared that she was about to go into battle. Her artificially augmented heart didn't beat faster. Her lungs, securely sealed through a silicate membrane from any kind of poison or chemical warfare attack, didn't enhance their pace. Her mind was focused and clear. So were her ice-cold, artificially blue eyes, studying the target area. She came here to do her job, her duty. What she had been created for. The righteous thing. Furthermore, it was something she was very good at. Adriel had stated, prior to leaving Olympias, that they should be back by breakfast. The target area ahead was in shabby condition. Shacks and makeshift houses built in and around the ruins of old, overgrown industrial premises. The location was partly hidden by the remains of an old Highway bridge, its old asphalt cracked, with weeds growing everywhere, and some of its circling sidearms had collapsed. The ancient roads and self-made paths were covered with mud. It had been raining a lot, as it almost always did in this area. This was only one of the reasons why any sane person would never understand that people actually chose to live here. The small settlement was surrounded by some archaic plantations and little fields, hidden in between old buildings. Everything here was designed to stay unnoticed, to not be found. And yet they had been discovered. Eventually, all of them were. Metatron was right. These subjects here were completely oblivious of what was coming their way. Only a few guards were on duty, sitting on two of the old chimneys of the facility. They would have no chance to spot the attacking troops before sharpshooters took them out. After that, they would ambush those that remained in their sleep. Standard procedure, requiring a minimum of time, resources, and casualties. Nephilim's scanner showed one hundred twenty-six human life forms in the settlement. There wouldn't be any left when the sun rose in less than an hour. *** Jeff woke up from a bad dream. He couldn't remember what it was he had dreamt, but it had left him with this uneasy feeling

When you lack your dream purpose then you have to work for others as per their terms and conditions to make your living but once you discover your own dream purpose and work on it passionately like a beast then you can build your empire sooner or later.

Why You Should Build a Personal Epidermis Good care Ritual One of the most crucial issues that anyone should learn in existence is how to properly manage their epidermis. Our epidermis is normally the greatest organ and is linked to our important organs in our human body. For this factor together, we should increase the attention it necessities for a better life. The very best method of performing this is usually to build a great personal epidermis health care practice - one which you can absolutely undertake for your long-term pores and skin goals. Why is this important? For one, we all have numerous skin area types and we also live in various conditions. What works for one person may not function that well to another. It is usually as well not about how high-priced your products happen to be. No subject how great your skin care and attention products happen to be, your skin is normally certainly not heading to glance the method you prefer it to if you don’t commit to applying it constantly. Even if you possess all the understanding about skin care and products, it can take dedication to essentially execute what you find out. Establishing the personal skin caution routine is likewise crucial since if perhaps you simply carry out what you find in others, it is certainly not heading to become a personal experience and it will not signify a thing anyhow. When you adhere to your personal epidermis good care routine, it is normally hence many easier to do it in the long lasting. This is normally because you in person opted to carry out it and it is normally something you are heading to quickly familiarize yourself. An absense of one else may create a good great personal pores and skin good care guideline for yourself other than you. You find out your pores and skin and you in person know very well what it necessities. You just need to religiously follow your epidermis care and attention lead and carry out your anti aging practice. In no period, you can gain some skin area aim that you possess generally required.

One of the key lessons to draw from Bazalgette’s sewers is that successful long-term planning needs to be based on building adaptability, flexibility, and resilience into the original design. In his book How Buildings Learn, Stewart Brand points out that the most long-lasting buildings are those that can “learn” by adapting to new contexts over time: They can accommodate different users or be easily extended, retrofitted, or upgraded. He draws an analogy with biology: “The more adapted an organism to present conditions, the less adaptable it can be to unknown future conditions.”24 This is exactly where the London sewers were exemplary. By making the tunnels double the size needed at the time, Bazalgette designed long-term adaptability into the system, just as his use of the finest building materials gave the sewers enough resilience to survive over a century of constant wear and tear. Of course, we can learn about resilience not just from cases like the Victorian sewers, but from natural phenomena such as a delicate spider web that manages to survive a storm or the way sweating and shivering help regulate human body temperature.

Crimp Roofing Sheets – 3sgroups Crimp roofing sheets have emerged as a versatile and stylish roofing solution that seamlessly combines functionality with aesthetic appeal. These sheets, characterized by their distinctive wavy pattern, offer a unique architectural element to any structure while providing essential protection from the elements. The crimping process not only enhances the sheet's strength and durability but also adds a visually captivating texture, making them a popular choice for both residential and commercial roofing applications. Durability Redefined: Crimp roofing sheets are engineered to withstand the harshest weather conditions, making them a reliable and long-lasting roofing solution. The crimping process enhances the structural integrity of the sheets, enabling them to resist impacts, heavy rainfall, and even extreme winds. This durability translates into reduced maintenance requirements and long-term cost savings, making crimp roofing sheets an economically sound investment for any construction project. Aesthetic Elegance: Beyond their impressive performance, crimp roofing sheets contribute significantly to the aesthetic appeal of a building. The unique wavy pattern adds depth and dimension to the roofline, creating an eye-catching visual effect. Whether used on contemporary structures or to add a touch of sophistication to traditional architecture, crimp roofing sheets effortlessly enhance the overall curb appeal of a property. Available in a range of colors and finishes, these sheets allow for creative design possibilities, enabling architects and homeowners to achieve their desired look with ease. In conclusion, crimp roofing sheets offer a harmonious blend of durability, style, and practicality. Their ability to provide superior protection while elevating the aesthetics of a structure makes them a favored choice for roofing solutions. With crimp roofing sheets, you're not just investing in a functional covering for your building; you're making a statement that merges architectural finesse with rugged reliability. Whether for a residential home or a commercial complex, crimp roofing sheets stand as a testament to the perfect synergy between form and function. In conclusion, crimp roofing sheets offer a harmonious blend of durability, style, and practicality. Their ability to provide superior protection while elevating the aesthetics of a structure makes them a favored choice for roofing solutions. With crimp roofing sheets, you're not just investing in a functional covering for your building; you're making a statement that merges architectural finesse with rugged reliability. Whether for a residential home or a commercial complex, crimp roofing sheets stand as a testament to the perfect synergy between form and function.

Narcissistic Disorder The basic premise of this personality disorder is an inflated sense of self worth. This trait is often emphasized by a need to be appreciated and admired although someone with this disorder usually is unable to have any empathy for others; no matter what their situation. People with this disorder will often be fond of overly grand gestures and will assume they are the most important part of anyone’s life; even if you met them just five minutes ago. There are very few scenarios where this inflated sense of self worth is appropriate in modern society. Surprisingly, under this façade there is usually a very fragile self esteem which needs the consistent bolstering of ego that their behavior attracts. People with this disorder will often appear to be snobbish, disdainful or simply patronizing and condescending. They are likely to give out opinions on the failings of others at the drop of a hat without acknowledging their own shortcomings. The belief that they should be the most important person in any room can lead to issues when dealing with relationships at home or at work; this will be particularly noticeable if someone else is praised and you are not. In situations such as these, it is common for someone with this disorder to react angrily or impatiently; making it very difficult to build a long term relationship. The Symptoms Again, in order for someone to be diagnosed with this condition they will need to display at least five of the following symptoms and to have had these issues for at least one year. •   A sufferer has a hugely inflated opinion of their own self worth. They will usually inflate their achievements and skills to ensure they are the best in the room. They are unlikely to be able to substantiate any of these claims. •   They often indulge in a fantasy world where they have unlimited success, power, money and love. This indulgence can occur at any time. •   They will have a belief that they are very special and that there are only a few other people in the world which are on the same level as them. This belief means they will often try to associate with these people and no one else; as these are the only people who will understand them. •   The belief that they are special necessitates them to expect and demand your praise and adulation at all times of the day. They expect to be admired simply for being who they are. This belief extends to expecting others to provide them with favorable treatment and to know their expectations without being told them. •   This feeling of their own self worth will cause many people with this disorder to take advantage of others in order to achieve their own goal. They are unlikely to see this as exploitation; instead, it is just others doing what they should to satisfy their needs. •   It is usual for someone with this personality disorder to lack empathy towards others, particularly those who they feel are beneath them; which is almost everyone. •   Envy is a common trait in people with this disorder. They are liable to be envious of anyone who has something they do not and they will believe others are envious of them; because of their importance. •   People who suffer from this illness will often come across as arrogant, haughty or even rude. This disorder occurs in more men than women and current estimates suggest that the disorder is present in approximately six percent of the population. Symptoms associated with this disorder will always be present, even when a child; but the constantly evolving personality is likely to mask this and it is not usually possible to diagnose the condition until the late teens or early twenties.

If only to save me from tripping over potted plants in the middle of the night when I want a goddamn glass of water.” “Of course. How silly of me to think you wanted to build one to make me happy.” “Anything I do is solely for my benefit.” But his grin says the exact opposite.

You do not want your business to crumble because of a stupid mistake—because you screwed up your employment agreements or your terms and conditions.

What is diabetes? The term diabetes refers to a group of diseases that affect the way your body uses blood glucose, commonly called blood sugar. Glucose is vital to your health because it’s the main source of energy for the cells that make up your muscles and tissues. It’s your body’s main source of fuel. If you have diabetes — no matter what type — it means you have too much glucose in your blood, although the reasons why may differ. And too much glucose can lead to serious problems. To understand diabetes, it helps to understand how your body normally processes blood glucose. Processing of blood glucose Blood glucose comes from two major sources: the food you eat and your liver. During digestion, glucose is absorbed into your bloodstream. Normally, it then enters your body’s cells, aided by the action of insulin. The hormone insulin comes from your pancreas. When you eat, your pancreas secretes insulin into your bloodstream. As insulin circulates, it acts like a key, unlocking microscopic doors that allow glucose to enter your cells. In this way, insulin lowers the amount of glucose in your bloodstream and prevents it from reaching high levels. As your blood glucose level drops, so does the secretion of insulin from your pancreas. Your liver acts as a glucose storage and manufacturing center. When the level of insulin in your blood is high, such as after a meal, your liver stores extra glucose as glycogen in case your cells need it later. When your insulin levels are low, for example, when you haven’t eaten in a while, your liver releases the stored glucose into your bloodstream to keep your blood sugar level within a normal range. When you have diabetes If you have diabetes, this process doesn’t work properly. Instead of being transported into your cells, excess glucose builds up in your bloodstream, and eventually some of it is excreted in your urine. This usually occurs when your pancreas produces little or no insulin, or your cells don’t respond properly to insulin, or for both reasons. The medical term for this condition is diabetes mellitus (MEL-lih-tuhs). Mellitus is a Latin word meaning “honey sweet,” referring to the excess sugar in your blood and urine. Another form of diabetes, called diabetes insipidus (in-SIP-uh-dus), is a rare condition in which the kidneys are unable to conserve water, leading to increased urination and excessive thirst. Rather than an insulin problem, diabetes insipidus results from a different hormone disorder. In this book, the term diabetes refers only to diabetes mellitus.

the customer-company relationship is based on good value in exchange for a fair price. You simply cannot run a long-term successful business if you don’t seek to improve the condition of your customers and members constantly.

If you’re like most people, a string of nerve-racking incidents keeps you in fight-or-flight response—and out of homeostasis—a large part of the time. Maybe the car cutting you off is the only actual life-threatening situation you encounter all day, but the traffic on the way to work, the pressure of preparing for a big presentation, the argument you had with your spouse, the credit-card bill that came in the mail, the crashing of your computer hard drive, and the new gray hair you noticed in the mirror keep the stress hormones circulating in your body on a near-constant basis. Between remembering stressful experiences from the past and anticipating stressful situations coming up in your future, all these repetitive short-term stresses blur together into long-term stress. Welcome to the 21st-century version of living in survival mode. In fight-or-flight mode, life-sustaining energy is mobilized so that the body can either run or fight. But when there isn’t a return to homeostasis (because you keep perceiving a threat), vital energy is lost in the system. You have less energy in your internal environment for cell growth and repair, long-term building projects on a cellular level, and healing when that energy is being channeled elsewhere. The cells shut down, they no longer communicate with one another, and they become “selfish.” It’s not time for routine maintenance (let alone for making improvements); it’s time for defense. It’s every cell for itself, so the collective community of cells working together becomes fractured. The immune and endocrine systems (among others) become weakened as genes in those related cells are compromised when informational signals from outside the cells are turned off. It’s like living in a country where 98 percent of the resources go toward defense, and nothing is left for schools, libraries, road building and repair, communication systems, growing of food, and so on. Roads develop potholes that aren’t fixed. Schools suffer budget cuts, so students wind up learning less. Social welfare programs that took care of the poor and the elderly have to close down. And there’s not enough food to feed the masses. Not surprisingly, then, long-term stress has been linked to anxiety, depression, digestive problems, memory loss, insomnia, hypertension, heart disease, strokes, cancer, ulcers, rheumatoid arthritis, colds, flu, aging acceleration, allergies, body pain, chronic fatigue, infertility, impotence, asthma, hormonal issues, skin rashes, hair loss, muscle spasms, and diabetes, to name just a few conditions (all of which, by the way, are the result of epigenetic changes). No organism in nature is designed to withstand the effects of long-term stress.

Yet, if they repudiated the social dogmas of their time as artificial, abstract, and far removed from real life, their own approach to building the good society could hardly be called pragmatic or empirical. Visionary utopians, the anarchists paid scant attention to the practical needs of a rapidly changing world; they generally avoided careful analysis of social and economic conditions, nor were they able or even willing to come to terms with the inescapable realities of political power. For the religious and metaphysical gospels of the past, they substituted a vague messianism which satisfied their own chiliastic expectations; in place of complex ideologies, they offered simple action-slogans, catchwords of revolutionary violence, poetic images of the coming Golden Age. By and large, they seemed content to rely on "the revolutionary instincts of the masses" to sweep away the old order and "the creative spirit of the masses" to build the new society upon its ashes. "Through a Social Revolution to the Anarchist Future!" proclaimed a group of exiles in South America; the practical details of agriculture and industry "will be worked out afterwards" by the revolutionary masses. Such an attitude, though it sprang from a healthy skepticism towards the ideological "blueprints" and "scientific laws" of their Marxist adversaries, could be of little help in setting a course of action designed to revolutionize the world.

There is now good dietary information for the two chief conditions referring to mental decline. On the modest side, there is a condition called "cognitive impairment" or "cognitive dysfunction." This condition describes the declining ability to remember and think as well as one once did. It represents a continuum of disease ranging from cases that only hint at declining abilities to those that are much more obvious and easily diagnosed. Then there are mental dysfunctions that become serious, even life threatening. These are called dementia, of which there are two main types: vascular dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Vascular dementia is primarily caused by multiple little strokes resulting from broken blood vessels in the brain. It is common for elderly people to have "silent" strokes in their later years. A stroke is considered silent if it goes undetected and undiagnosed. Each little stroke incapacitates part of the brain. The other type of dementia, Alzheimer's, occurs when a protein substance called beta-amyloid accumulates in critical areas of the brain as a plaque, rather like the cholesterol-laden plaque that builds up in cardiovascular diseases.

A beautiful example of a long-term intention was presented by A. T. Ariyaratane, a Buddhist elder, who is considered to be the Gandhi of Sri Lanka. For seventeen years there had been a terrible civil war in Sri Lanka. At one point, the Norwegians were able to broker peace, and once the peace treaty was in effect, Ariyaratane called the followers of his Sarvodaya movement together. Sarvodaya combines Buddhist principles of right livelihood, right action, right understanding, and compassion and has organized citizens in one-third of that nation’s villages to dig wells, build schools, meditate, and collaborate as a form of spiritual practice. Over 650,000 people came to the gathering to hear how he envisioned the future of Sri Lanka. At this gathering he proposed a five-hundred-year peace plan, saying, “The Buddha teaches we must understand causes and conditions. It’s taken us five hundred years to create the suffering that we are in now.” Ari described the effects of four hundred years of colonialism, of five hundred years of struggle between Hindus, Muslims, and Buddhists, and of several centuries of economic disparity. He went on, “It will take us five hundred years to change these conditions.” Ariyaratane then offered solutions, proposing a plan to heal the country. The plan begins with five years of cease-fire and ten years of rebuilding roads and schools. Then it goes on for twenty-five years of programs to learn one another’s languages and cultures, and fifty years of work to right economic injustice, and to bring the islanders back together as a whole. And every hundred years there will be a grand council of elders to take stock on how the plan is going. This is a sacred intention, the long-term vision of an elder.