Vemma Paradise

Activewear, Fashion Or Fitness?

2011-11-10T10:00:00.000-08:00

Looking stylish in and out of the gym is now so effortless due to the abundance of amazing activewear that is available. While being surrounded by so many mirrors and eyes at the gym, we will always want to look our best. If by chance you look into that mirror and see something that you don't love it makes it that much harder to get through those last few miles. Even if you are seeking some concealment, a well fitting and beautifully designed activewear outfit will make you look sporty and feel ready to break a sweat with confidence.

With the ever growing popularity of yoga in today's global fashion, yoga clothes are no longer just for yoga class. A beautiful and comfortable pair of yoga pants, hoodies and camisoles can effortlessly transition with you and your day from the studio to the street. Even if you are not a yoga person, you too can find great pieces in today's very fashionable yoga clothing lines.

For many women, black yoga pants are a staple of their day to day wardrobe. They work great for everything from being out and running errands to being dressed up. Yoga pants come in so many colors that you can use them to create any outfit, from chic to eclectic.

Yoga pants, when paired with running shoes and an activewear top, make the instant gym and errand outfit. Many women love to travel in yoga pants; they are effortlessly comfortable and transition beautifully, they don't take up much room in luggage, and are so cozy.

Biking is another great outlet for yoga pants, being more contoured to the body you don't have excess fabric to create wind resistance.

Adding some fun sandals to any pair of yoga pants instantly adds some pizzazz. Yoga pants are truly the perfect backdrop for most outfits. Falling into the background, they allow your fancy shoes, intricate necklaces, or dramatic shirts to claim all of the attention all the while flattering your body from every angle, plus the comfort!

Activewear tops make great layering pieces for the everyday woman. They give great support and are seamless, leaving bra lines as a thing of the past. Layering a cotton shirt over an activewear top can creates a tight tummy appearance. Activewear hoodies are fashionable and functional, from a great run, to catching a movie you always look trendy. Activewear either in a classic black or great fresh colors and patterns, make them a shoe in for matching endless pieces in your wardrobe!

Beautiful activewear pieces not only give us the function and confidence we want and need in the gym, but also double as fashionable everyday closet pieces. Never again will 'the gym' and 'daily wear' need separate sections in your closet.

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Benefits of Online Fitness Programs

2011-11-08T20:05:00.000-08:00

There are many benefits of choosing an online fitness program over a live personal trainer. In this article, I will focus on the most important ones. I will also mention and recommend Global Health and Fitness' online fitness program ( http://www.popularfitness.com/global-fitness.html ) because in my opinion they are the leaders in this field on the web. Not only have they been online since 1997, more importantly they have helped hundreds of people over the years achieve their fitness goals. They are associated with many well-known fitness-related professionals and have also been featured in numerous fitness articles.

Convenience.

The best thing about the Internet is that information is available when and where you want it - it is interactive and dynamic. These are the reasons why the Internet is ideal for a fitness program and trainers. A true personal trainer that has come of age and that is accessible from your home or office almost any time of the day. Most people cannot afford to have a trainer to offer them guidance and support whenever they need it. With online fitness programs you can receive advice almost any time of the day. Got a question that pops in your head while your at work? You can email the fitness program and receive a prompt reply. Something live personal trainers just cannot do.

Inexpensive and extensive area of expertise.

Most live trainers specialize in general fitness only whereas Global's fitness program includes 30 highly qualified professionals from every fitness-related field. Not only do you receive help with your workouts, but you will receive nutrition advice, injury and rehabilitation training help for a specific sporting event or competition, your medical questions answered, motivational help and more. This is all available at a fraction of the cost that a personal trainer would charge who is limited in knowledge to only his or her field of expertise.

Fitness must be enjoyable.

For any fitness program to be a success, we all know that it needs to be enjoyable. If you are new to fitness or want to start on an exercise program, it is difficult to know where to begin and very time consuming to read and figure out your own fitness program. In the end, it could be very frustrating and boring for you resulting in you giving up. Global's online personal trainer program cuts through all the confusion and teaches you exactly how to achieve the results you want. By eliminating the guesswork, your very own online personal trainer will help you avoid the common mistakes that can waste your time and effort. Their mission is to have you seeing great results as soon as possible. You will soon discover that you can truly enjoy healthy eating and physical activity for the rest of your life.

If you have been exercising for a while and are trying to reach new plateaus, Global can help you by creating an exercise and nutrition program that produces the best results that you are aiming for. By teaching you techniques for making your routine much more effective and personally guiding you step-by-step to achieving new results again and again!

Up-to-date

A fitness program that is frequently updated, thus offering you all the latest reliable research and discoveries in the fitness industry.

Customized and personalized for you.

Global's online personal trainers will customize your very own program based on your fitness level, goals, personal preferences, time and equipment availability, and special limitations and requests.

Tools and Live Chat.

Various tools are also available that outside of a live personal trainer would end up costing you a lot such as video demonstrations, exercise instructions, Protrack software, healthy recipes and shopping lists, online books of the 5 components of optimal health, live chats with online personal trainers and much more. All of which will enhance your learning and assure your success.

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An Explanation As To What Muscle Fitness Is

2011-11-07T07:17:00.000-08:00

So just what is muscle fitness? It can mean that a person has more powerful muscles so that they are able to lift heavier objects. Or it can mean that they will work for longer before becoming tired. Muscle
fitness can be achieved not just through exercise but through fitness program which consists of strength and weight training, as well as cardiovascular and flexibility training.

However for you to get into shape you need to start with a plan. First you must have a picture in your mind of what you want to look like. Then you need to start laying the foundations (this can take months to do).

Then yet more months of hard work will follow and you look in the mirror each day and there just does not seem to be anything happening. In fact for many of us we will look the same as we did, but slowly day by day the improvements are beginning to happen. Then suddenly one day you will look in the mirror and see that all that hard work has finally achieved your goal.

Where muscle fitness is concerned it is the aspect of general fitness which solely concentrates on developing not only the strength but the size of our skeletal muscles. With this there will be some sort of
weight or resistance training involved. But whilst weight training is often most often associated with bodybuilders or those who want to look good there are many health reasons (as well as cosmetic) to having good muscle fitness.

1. Having proper muscle fitness not only allows a person to lift heavier objects, but also enables them to work for much longer without becoming tired.

2. Having good muscle fitness and tone will also help you to avoid injuries to your body joints. The reason being that your muscles have become more flexible and are able to cope with any stresses put upon them especially around the joints.

It is important that when you design your weight training program in order to improve your muscles you should include muscle balance.

Therefore you should select a similar number of exercises and sets to do for opposing muscle groups. Also you may find yourself becoming susceptible to injury or your posture being altered when significant
amounts of training is performed on one particular movement and not the opposite one. This is the end can lead to not just muscular weakness but also postural deficiencies. So it is therefore important that when producing a muscle fitness program you include plenty of exercises for all of your muscles and not just a few.

Another thing though, is that the definition of fitness needs to be well understood in order that the goal is set clear right from the beginning of any fitness training program.

The true meaning of fitness, therefore, is the ability of the body to perform whatever tasks the mind dictates. In other words, when we ask how fit a person is, what we're referring to is "How well a person's body can perform according to that person's will."

This lays the basics of sports competition of all kinds - all they're trying to show and compete in is "How well my body listens to my will as compared to yours?" And this brings up another huge topic of "How to
train our body to cooperate with our mind in sport competition." Hence the most updated research of how our mind can enhance performance in sport competition.

And believe it or not, muscle fitness plays a "not so significant" role in this bigger scheme of things here.

Besides being a naturopathic physican, Dr. Kang-pang Chan is also a personal trainer certified by the International Sports Sciences Association (ISSA).

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5 Components of Physical Fitness

2011-11-05T15:21:00.000-07:00

The 5 components of physical fitness are often used in our school systems, health clubs and fitness centers to gauge how good a shape we are truly in. The 5 components that make up total fitness are:

Cardiovascular Endurance
Muscular Strength
Muscular endurance
Flexibility
Body Composition

Total fitness can be defined by how well the body performs in each one of the components of physical fitness as a whole. It is not enough to be able to bench press your body weight. You also need to determine how well you can handle running a mile etc.
A closer look at the individual components:

Cardiovascular endurance is the ability of the heart and lungs to work together to provide the needed oxygen and fuel to the body during sustained workloads. Examples would be jogging, cycling and swimming. The Cooper Run is used most often to test cardiovascular endurance.

Muscular strength is the amount of force a muscle can produce. Examples would be the bench press, leg press or bicep curl. The push up test is most often used to test muscular strength.

Muscular endurance is the ability of the muscles to perform continuous without fatiguing. Examples would be cycling, step machines and elliptical machines. The sit up test is most often used to test muscular endurance.

Flexibility is the ability of each joint to move through the available range of motion for a specific joint. Examples would be stretching individual muscles or the ability to perform certain functional movements such as the lunge. The sit and reach test is most often used to test flexibility.

Body composition is the amount of fat mass compared to lean muscle mass, bone and organs. This can be measured using underwater weighing, Skinfold readings, and bioelectrical impedance. Underwater weighing is considered the "gold standard" for body fat measurement, however because of the size and expense of the equipment needed very few places are set up to do this kind of measurement.

Why the need for physical fitness testing?

As stated earlier the 5 components of physical fitness represent how fit and healthy the body is as a whole. When you have the battery of tests performed you will receive information on the specific areas you made need to work in. A very specific goal oriented fitness program can be developed from the test battery.

If body composition is of (higher fat compared to muscle mass) there are many health related diseases and illnesses you have a higher chance of contracting. It is important to combine healthy eating habits with your exercise program.

If you scored low on the cardiovascular test you would have a higher chance of being at risk for heart related illnesses and would not do well with activities that require longer times to complete. You would participate in things such as long bike rides, swimming and jogging for extended periods of time to correct this component.

The next three tests can have results that are isolated to specific joints and muscles of the body or affect the body as a whole.

If you score low on the flexibility tests, you have a greater chance of decreased performance in daily living activities/sports and a higher risk of injury. You may also experience low back pain. It would be important to included flexibility training into your workout everyday.

If you scored low on the muscular endurance test you fatigue early into the exercise or activities of daily living. Many exercises that require high reps and low weight would be implemented into your training program.

If you scored low on the muscle strength test you do not have enough strength to perform well in sports, resistance training and activities of daily living. Your fitness program would have a progressive strength training component added that would allow you to become stronger with little chance of injury over time.

Fitness testing has its limitations - while it gives you a good idea of where your body is, it does not paint the entire picture. As stated earlier some of the above tests are only testing specific body parts. Other important factors such as balance and agility are not tested. It also requires the ability to perform the tests. It would be dangerous for someone who is in poor condition and does not exercise to participate in fitness testing.

Before deciding to undergo fitness testing, make sure you know why they are being done and determine that it is safe for you to participate.

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5 Tips to Running Fitness

2011-11-03T19:48:00.000-07:00

Running, either you love it or you hate it, for most people there does not seem to be any in between.

Assuming, then, that you love it, or at least the idea of getting and staying fit through running your little socks off, there are, as with any activity you are not accustomed to, some important beginning exercises before you go sprinting over the hills and far away.

Experienced runners or joggers will tell you that running costs nothing and, in addition to being free it also has the ability to set you free. You can run where you please, it gets you fit very quickly and it burns a whole heap of calories. For beginners, though, there are a few hints for you so that you can start off on the right foot, so to speak.

RUNNING GEAR

1. The gear should be right for you. Visit your local sports equipment store and get correctly fitted with running shoes. There is a big difference between the shoes you want for your sport and say, walking, playing rugby or soccer. You need to look at shoes that cushion impact over the areas of the feet that will receive the most jarring on each running stride. Remember too that you will need to 'wear them in' before starting your first run; walk about the house with them on for a few days beforehand.

As for clothing, any shorts and top will do the job, as long as they don't restrict movement of arms and legs - pretty obvious really, but you would be amazed at how many beginners choose singlets and shorts either too tight or too baggy. A comfortable fit is the order of the day, not forgetting a well-fitting sports bra for the ladies - boob bounce can be uncomfortable.

WARM UP

2. Once you have the right gear you are set to go. Possibly the most important part of running for fitness is the warm up. Forget all the nonsense written and spoken about fancy leg, knee, neck and arm stretches - the best and easiest method of warming up for a run is...to run. Gently, not hard or with explosive bursts. A gentle jog or a speed walk for between three to five minutes will warm up your muscles. When you feel comfortable, go from that point.

COOLING DOWN

3. Once you have finished your run it is wise to 'warm down'. Spend a couple of minutes or so slowing down - don't come to a sudden stop as this can lead to an abrupt drop in blood pressure. Gently begin to stretch the various parts of your body as in the following way.

· Front of thighs (Quadriceps). With a straight back and tummy pulled in, stand on your left leg and bend your right knee while holding your right ankle with your right hand. You will feel the muscles stretching slightly. Change legs and repeat.

· Calf Muscles. Stand about three feet (a metre) from a wall; lean against it, palms flat, arms straight. Place one foot in front of the other and bend the right leg slightly, keeping the back leg straight and heel on the ground. Feel the calf muscle stretching. Change and repeat.

· Hamstrings (Back of the thighs). Stand with the right foot about one step in front of the left, put your hands on your left knee and bend it, keeping the right leg straight and heel on the ground. Pull your tummy in and bend forward, keeping your head raised. Change and repeat.

WATER

4. Drink plenty of pure water before, during and after your run. Do not drink gallons at a time, but sip frequently.

FOOD

5. Do not run on a completely empty stomach. About one hour before you plan to start your run, eat something that is easy to digest so that energy is released slowly.

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29 Healthy Fit Tips

2011-11-02T01:32:00.000-07:00

1. BETTER POSTURE - If you have rounded or hunched shoulders and want to improve your posture, here are two things you can do. Backward shoulder rolls and shoulder squeezes with short sustained holds can help strengthen you upper middle back and stretch your chest. Think of your chest as if it were the headlights of a car and always keep your head lights up. Avoid arching your back. You'll soon walk straighter, stronger and be on your way to better posture for life.

2. METABOLISM - Exercise not only increases the metabolic rate for the duration of the activity, but also for many hours after completion. Studies have indicated that the resting metabolism is still elevated some 18 hours after the exercise period. That means you're still burning calories long after you're finished working out.

3. WEIGHT LOSS - "It's hard to lose weight and keep it off". How many times have you heard that? The recent release of information saying that we have a fat gene is very depressing. It would be so easy to believe the "doomed to be fat" editorials or the notion that there's little that we can do about how much we weigh. But don't you dare for a minute, buy into that kind of thinking. If you watch what you eat and stay active, how much you weigh will be "OK". Think about it, there are people you know who have been successful at losing weight and keeping it off. Think positively.

4. FLAT ABS - Don't get too hung up on having the perfect flat stomach. For some people, this goal may be impossible. Even if you are very thin, your internal organs may give a slight roundness in your abdominal region. The flatness of your stomach depends, in large part on your genetics. That is, whether or not your body tends to store fat around your midsection or elsewhere.

5. HEART - Exercise has been proven to protect the heart. A moderate amount of exercise increase HDL cholesterol. It also lowers blood pressure, makes you less likely to gain weight, increases insulin sensitivity in the muscles and lowers the risk of formatting blood clots. Fit individuals have a lower risk of heart disease.

6. BMR - Our Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR), which is the number of calories burned at rest, decreases with age. Researchers have realized that a person's lean body mass is the key to compiling a definitive figure. The best way to maintain lean body mass is by including strength training to your workout regime. Without strength training, the BMR may drop by 100 calories per decade, starting at age 20, so build those muscles and burn more calories.

7. STRENGTH TRAINING - Is an excellent way to slow down the aging process, In fact, one researcher indicates that much of what we call aging, is nothing more than the accumulation of a lifetime of inactivity. For example, muscles shrink due to inactivity - a process we call atrophy and body fat increases as a result. Also linked with inactivity are risks of diabetes, hypertension and osteoporosis. By preserving muscle mass, we may prevent these problems from occurring.

8. SPOT REDUCING - It is a myth that abdominal exercises like sit ups burn fat deposits around the waist. The fact is, abdominal exercises can strengthen your abdominal muscles which in return help burn fat overall but it won't selectively burn abdominal fat. You can't spot reduce, which means to lose weight from specific regions of the body. However, this is not to say that doing abdominal exercises is a waste of time. When properly done, they strengthen and tone your abdominal muscles which are otherwise hard to exercise. Strong abdominals muscles provide better support for the back and may alleviate some back problems. The best way to lose fat is exercise combined with a low fat diet.

9. INFLEXIBILITY - in the quads can alter pelvic alignment, which in turn contributes to problems in the lower back. Lack of muscular coordination in this area increases risk of accidents and falls. Remember to include flexibility and coordination exercises when working out.

10. WOMEN - generally lose between 3 and 6% of their bone density annually just before and after menopause. Researchers estimate that in the women they studied, waling generally delayed osteoporosis by about 7 years and also conveyed cardiovascular benefits.

11. WOMEN & HEALTH - Women who exercise regularly experience as much as 60% reduction in the risk of breast cancer. Those who participated in at least 4 hours of exercise per week appeared to reap the greatest benefit.

12. WEIGHT TRAINING - Research has found that as women become stronger and fit with weights, they begin to spend time pursuing other physical activities, such as team sports like tennis or join a cycling group, all because their stronger.

13. HEALTH - Did you know that strokes are rare in women 25-44? Under age 45, only 10/100,000 women lose their lives to stroke or other brain disorders. After 45, however, the rate zooms to 65/100,000 and continues to increase with age. The best way to avoid stroke is to control your blood pressure by keeping weight and cholesterol in check through healthy eating and regular exercise.

14. AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN - More than 40% of African American women weigh more than 20% above their ideal body weight, which gives them a 90% greater chance of developing heart disease. This extra weight, combined with a lack of exercise, contributes to other conditions that weaken the heart and one's overall health, including high blood pressure, diabetes, and high cholesterol. So get movin'!

15. WEAK MUSCLES - A recent study indicated that half of women age 65 cannot lift 10 pounds. Women have less muscle mass to begin with, and they start to lose muscle strength more rapidly after age 60. Often times they become so profoundly weak that they must be put into nursing homes because they are unable to perform their daily functions. So start pumping those weights.

16. EXERCISE DURATION - How much exercise is enough? Well, fitness experts say at least 60 minutes of moderate intensity activity a day. If you don't have 60 straight minutes, break it up into 6, 10 minute workouts or 30 minute workouts 4 to 6 days a week.

17. MUSCLE MASS - More muscle creates a higher demand for energy. In order for muscles to maintain itself at rest and during exercise, you'll need to eat more foods high in nutrients. How do we create this formula...resistance training builds strong muscles, and eating foods low in fat will help to prevent the loss of muscle mass.

18. TOTAL BODY - just like baking a pie, you need all the ingredients to have a beautiful and tasteful pie, same with your body, it's not one without the other, taking care of your body means as a whole, mentally, physically and spiritually!

19. HEALTHY FOODS - Eating foods that are rich in antioxidants are better for your skin, cells and body. Think organic, non-chemical foods that are not loaded with toxins. Eat fewer calories

20. REST - Your body needs rest to repair itself. Also, a rested mind is a happy mind that can think more clearly and has more energy. Active minds are more likely to remain healthy.

21. LIVE LONGER - Be active and live longer! Physical activity is critical to longevity and independent living. Death rates in non-active people double the rate of those that live an active lifestyle...so keep moving!

22. ADVICE - Eighty percent of women rely on their friends for advice and support when trying to improve health habits. Eating healthier diets and increasing physical activity are the main ways that women attempt to improve their health and succeed.

23. WORKING OVERTIME - Women who work overtime consume more high fat, high sugar snacks and caffeinated beverages, smoke more, and get less exercise. People snack more when they work in hostile, high stress environments. Snacking at work is not necessarily bad if you choose healthy foods such as fruit, low-fat yogurt, or high-fiber crackers.

24. MAGNESIUM - Calcium and vitamin D get all the glory when it comes to promoting bone health. While they are the major nutritional players in bone metabolism, minerals such as iron and magnesium are also important. Good sources of magnesium include fruits vegetables and whole grains. You can also beef up magnesium intake by taking a good multivitamin that contains it.

25. METABOLICALLY FIT - Sixty percent of Americans are overweight, while 25 percent are obese. Many of these people exercise regularly, some vigorously, but are still overweight. A few extra pounds are okay if you are metabolically fit- as long as you exercise regularly. It's best to be lean and active, but you get some health benefits from exercise no matter how much you weigh. It's easier for a fat person to increase physical activity than to lose weight through diet alone.

26. VITMAMIN D - Skin doctors have been telling women for year to stay out of the sun and avoid tanning beds to avoid wrinkled skin and skin cancer. While the bronzed tan look is still popular, many women cover up or use protective sun lotions to protect their skin. Avoiding the sun's rays completely is not a good idea. The body gets vitamin D largely from a reaction that requires sunlight. The vitamin is essential for building strong bones, preserving muscle strength, and preventing multiple sclerosis, diabetes, and cancer. It also helps regulate cell growth, immunity, and energy metabolism. Dermatologists (skin doctors) countered that people with vitamin D deficiencies can take supplements and should avoid excessive sun exposure.

27. STRESS - Stress can literally give people gray hairs and cause cells to age and die faster than normal. Cells can only reproduce a limited number of times. Stress shortens that interval, which makes it more difficult to repair injured cells and fight disease. University of California, San Francisco found greater cell damage in women who were under high levels of stress compared to women who weren't. Stressed women had cells that were judged 10 years older than the cells of unstressed women of the same age. The scientists speculated that free radicals- destructive chemicals produced normally during metabolism- were responsible for stress-related cell aging. Try to reduce the stress in your life- you might live longer.

28. WHOLE GRAINS - Eating more high grain foods contributes to weight loss and prevents disease. New FDA food guidelines recommend five to ten servings of grain products- at least three of which should be from whole grains. They also urged people to eat fewer servings of refined grain products. Whole grain foods must contain all three layers of the grain- the endosperm, the bran and the germ. Read the label carefully when shopping for these foods. Dark bread does not necessarily contain whole grains.

29. DARIY FOODS - Most women know the importance of calcium intake for building and maintaining strong bones. Dairy foods, such as milk and cheese, are the best sources for calcium. Dairy foods may also help fight fat. Iranian scientists found that men and women who consumed the most dairy products are 80% less likely to be obese and have a lower body mass index. Try to consume three servings per day of non-fat dairy foods.

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#1 Reason Why Fitness Enthusiasts Should Be Cross Training

2011-11-01T01:12:00.000-07:00

Over-all fitness improvement can only be achieved by making a compromise between ALL of the physical abilities needed for fitness excellence... and using cross training (CT) to improve those abilities.

If you are a fitness enthusiast interested in improving health and over-all physical abilities which will enable you to meet the challenges of sport, work and life with excellence... you should be CT!

Cross training is a form of training that uses more than one method to achieve the desired physical goals.

For example, a runner might also train on the stationary bike with the hopes of improving their running performance.

The debate continues as to whether this type of CT is truly beneficial for elite athlete performance improvement.

But what about when we look at the training methods of the fitness enthusiast?... someone that physically trains for health and over-all fitness improvement.

In my opinion... Fitness enthusiasts should be cross training if they want to optimize strength, conditioning and fitness.

One physical training method cannot provide enough varied stimulus to improve all the physical abilities needed for fitness excellence... this can only be accomplished by using CT between various physical training methods, stresses and intensities.

The #1 Reason Fitness Enthusiasts Should Be Cross Training?

Fitness is the degree of competence in the ability to perform in all the areas of cardiorespiratory endurance, strength, power, speed, flexibility, balance, coordination, agility, accuracy and toughness... not the ability to perform one physical ability well.

That's right... fitness is a compromise between various physical abilities!

It would then stand to reason that a physical fitness program should be designed to "optimize" the competence of all the physical abilities and their interaction with one another... and not "maximize" only one physical skill.

This can only be done through CT.

Let me give you an example of what I mean...

Suppose you are limiting your training to the combination of resistance training in the form of exercise machines and aerobic exercise in the form of riding the exercises bike.

Since physical training is specific... you are effectively training your body's ability to perform machine resistance exercises and ride a stationary bike.

Your body will make the necessary changes to allow you to perform those activities more efficiently in the future.

However, since true fitness is the compromise of physical abilities and the seamless transition from one physical ability to another... your physical training time would be better served by using cross training between a wider variety of training methods, stresses and intensities.

Cross training allows you to use many different training methods, stresses and intensities to create an environment for you body to improve over a wide spectrum of physical abilities... and not just one method, stress or intensity producing specialized fitness.

CT can keep you from overtraining one aspect of fitness... at the expense of all the others.

Cross training is fun... meaning you will be more likely to keep you physical fitness training program on track for the long haul.

CT can help you make physical activity a part of your lifestyle... the surest way to long term health.

In short, cross training can develop a body that is fit to do many activities well under the greatest amount of circumstances... allowing you to meet the random challenges of sport, work and life with excellence.

In conclusion...

Most commercial fitness programs are a limited form of cross training... combining resistance training in the form of machines and cardiovascular training in the form of aerobic activity.

Unfortunately, this cross training combination alone is not enough to train all the physical abilities needed for fitness excellence.

Only through cross training with a large variety of physical training methods, stresses and intensities can the fitness enthusiast reach their true physical potential.

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5 Components of Physical Fitness

2011-10-30T06:36:00.000-07:00

The 5 components of physical fitness are often used in our school systems, health clubs and fitness centers to gauge how good a shape we are truly in. The 5 components that make up total fitness are:

Cardiovascular Endurance
Muscular Strength
Muscular endurance
Flexibility
Body Composition

Muscular strength is the amount of force a muscle can produce. Examples would be the bench press, leg press or bicep curl. The push up test is most often used to test muscular strength.

Why the need for physical fitness testing?

The next three tests can have results that are isolated to specific joints and muscles of the body or affect the body as a whole.

Before deciding to undergo fitness testing, make sure you know why they are being done and determine that it is safe for you to participate.

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A Clock Can Get You Fit

2011-10-28T23:21:00.000-07:00

Can you believe it?

I know you're thinking I've gone waaaaay overboard this time.......but it's true.

"How in the world can a clock make you fit?"...you say.

Well, we all have the same amount of hours and minutes in a day.....it's just how we use them. By using your "clock" for each day, you can prep and plan exactly what to do, what to eat, and what to accomplish that will help you realize ALL of your fitness goals. You don't even need a custom fitness program from anyone else, just use your own goals and dreams to realize your fitness needs and wants.

Most people don't even have adequate time management skills, so they claim they "barely have enough time" to get up, go to work, eat, and go to sleep. I guarantee you; you can fit way more than that in your daily routine.

Actually, to illustrate this point, I saw something on TV that I think is all too prevalent among today's society.

I was watching a show called Dr. 90210 (I know, I know)......but if you don't know the premise of the show, it's about a day in the life of a few Beverly Hills, California plastic surgeons, and their patients that they see on an everyday basis. Well, as I was watching this show, a married lady with two kids was on there saying that she had gastric bypass surgery, and she had lost "abc" number of pounds (I don't remember the exact amount), and that she was going to get all the excess FLAB cut off on her, because the doctor claimed that she couldn't get rid of it anymore by just diet and exercise (hmmmm, diet and exercise, where have you heard that before?)

Anyway.

One statement of hers (she was being interviewed about her previous health lifestyle, or lack thereof) was very telling... "I didn't have enough time for fitness." Now, it wasn't just that she said it; it was how she said it. Almost as if nobody has time for fitness, or should have time for fitness. Almost, that people who weren't independently wealthy, or retired by 35 didn't have time for fitness. It was sad, really. They should have just stopped the interview right there, because of that one sentence; I knew how she had let herself go. She didn't think about her health and fitness, but when things got bad she:

o Got gastric bypass surgery - I don't even need to go there

o Finally started to eat better

o Finally started to exercise

o Still had to go get plastic surgery, because she had let herself go so bad, even all her great lifestyle changes couldn't fix everything (again more risks because of surgery, etc.)

Well, I'm here to tell you that it's wrong, WAY wrong.

Everyone has time for fitness.......and even if you're in a bind, you have to MAKE time.

Like I always say, "Don't wait till it's too late."

Hey, you make time to eat, sleep, work, be with your family.......well, you need to make time for yourself.

Because not paying attention to yourself and your body, can and will likely lead to various major illnesses as you get older (and not 70, I'm talking 30,40).

By improving your time management skills, you can increase your fitness levels to an unheard of amount.

You must make a plan and stick with it.......and it will become a part of your everyday routine. And once it does.......you won't know any difference from your old, unhealthy routine.

So, work on improving your time management skills..... you can do way more in your day than eat, sleep, and work. I don't want to hear any excuses, lol. Fit in a fitness routine........wake up a little earlier, go to bed a little later, take a smaller lunch break, just do something positive for your health! I know you are smart.....so, use that creative brain of yours and think of some ideas that will lead you to greater health.

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4 Tips To Get Fit Faster

2011-10-27T16:24:00.000-07:00

If I had a nickel for every time I've been asked to tell someone the key to getting fit I'd be living on some island being fed grapes (organic of course) by any number of very attentive and exceptionally formed females. This however is not my reality. Therefore, I will do my best to answer the question for you.

Given the question, "what is the key to getting fit," there are a few things we must take into consideration.

- Regardless of science, everyone defines physical fitness differently based on their own preferences.
- There are many ways to achieve any component of physical fitness I am just discussing a couple.
- You should know what the 5 primary components of physical fitness are as determined by science.
- All "keys" to physical fitness require ongoing effort on the part of the person getting in shape.

Once we have determined these things we can get on with discussing just a few ways I know you can improve your fitness level in a hurry. To be exact, I'm going to discuss four (4) bits of advice I would give just about anyone wanting to get fit in the shortest possible time.

So without further delay here goes!

1. Sprint often - whether you are running, riding a bike, jump roping or scaling a very tall tree, do it with maximal intensity. Of course this cuts down on the time you put into the activity, but the overall physiology of the activity will benefit you more as well. Having said this, I should probably explain that last statement. If you are wanting to run a marathon or swim to Tahiti, my previous statement is an outright lie. However if you desire to be strong, powerful, energetic, lean and muscular then my statement is right on the money (give me my nickel - another grape please). People who sprint as a fundamental part of their training are muscular, lean and powerful. If you don't believe me, just type "track sprinter" into Google images and see what kinds of physiques you find. On the other hand, people who do long distance, lower intensity exercise (long distance running, biking etc.) tend to be thin, less muscular and have an overall less well-rounded physique. You can type "endurance athlete" into Google images if you like. While I tend to appreciate both types of fitness activity and both types of physique I admit, that sprinter's physiques look more like what my idea of a fit body image is. So if you desire a body that is functional, strong, powerful, lean and vibrant, get to sprinting!

2. Reduce Grains and Dairy - luckily this tip is starting to take root and become more accepted in the fitness world. Bottom line; our bodies were not designed to ingest grain products nor dairy from non-human animals. Cow's milk, goat's milk, any milk other than human milk was designed for the babies of that species, not for you and I. While human milk was designed for us to drink, even it was only meant to be ingested during infancy. Once we can eat, chew and handle our own food we are meant to eat the phenomenally nourishing things the earth provides us naturally. Grains exist in great amounts because our starving ancestors way back in the day figured out that growing some wheat, rye or oats and carrying it around in a sack was a lot easier than chasing down a rabbit or rooting around for walnuts during a snow storm. Luckily we aren't so hard-up for nourishment these days. If you are a starving mess, then by all means, load up on the milk and bread. Heck, if you're truly starving, eat anything you can find! But if fitness is your goal and not simply surviving, then cut back on the grains and dairy. They are hard on the body, they are not easily digested, many are addictive, they tend to create inflammation and our body reacts to them by becoming bloated, sluggish and fatty. There is even evidence to show that grains (primarily wheat) may lead to verifiable brain damage and contribute to disorders like ADD, ADHD and depression. Try to stick with lean meats, fibrous vegetables, nuts, berries and melons. Things like this are what our bodies were designed to feed on, so give it a try.

3. Work with a Fitness Coach - I know, I know, you're thinking, "Jared, this isn't a very original tip," but it's one of the best tips I can give you. In my experience, less than 1% of most gym members work with a personal trainer while in excess of 60% stop coming and eventually drop their membership. You see it every January! Herds of people join the gym and shuffle toward the treadmills as if led by some primal force. After a few weeks you see fewer and fewer of the new faces and by March, it's the same group of regulars that have always been coming. But, we know that those who work with, and continue to work with a personal trainer or fitness coach, stick to their programs, they keep coming to the gym, and eventually they develop habits that lead them toward a more fit lifestyle. Working with a fitness coach or trainer is absolutely one of the best recommendations I can make to anyone wanting to get fit. My only caution is that you choose your coach wisely. I personally hire a professional coach to oversee my entire fitness program. That's how strongly I believe in this factor.

4. Thou Shalt Have 60 Days of Selfishness - many people fail to get fit, in part because it requires you to focus on yourself. Not just while you workout, but while you cook, while you eat and while you interact with your family and friends. If your tendency is to make everyone around you happy before taking time for yourself, I promise you your chances of achieving the fitness lifestyle are slim at best. You must learn to focus on yourself, your goals, your dreams, what you need and what will help you get fit. This means helping your spouse and kids deal with the fact that they are going to eat more broccoli this week and skip the chicken nuggets. Sometimes they are going to have to empty the dryer and fold some clothes because you are going to the gym. Your girlfriend/boyfriend is going to have to deal with the fact that on Saturday mornings you are going to go for a bike ride, so she/he can either come along or sleep late, but you are getting fit. In the end, personal fitness requires personal attention and care. If you can find ways to make yourself a priority for 60 days without letting anything or anyone else keep you from moving forward with your fitness plans, you will have a firm foundation on which to build a lifestyle you can be proud of.

So there are four (4) tips to getting fit in a hurry. Sure there are the usual tips you get from trainers not quite as cool as I, but in case you missed them, here's a few of the generic (but true) tips to getting fit:

- reduce sugary beverages (everyone knows this by now)
- increase water intake (YAWN!)
- taper-off or reduce your carbohydrate intake as the day progresses
- get plenty of sleep and rest
- reduce processed carbohydrate sources (if you omit grains you don't have to worry about this one)

Ok, you've had enough and so have I. But on a serious note, taking the four (4) tips I gave above and combining them with the things you already know and do will benefit you greatly and will take your chances of getting fit and staying fit and compound them almost instantly.

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9 Pioneers of Fitness

2011-10-26T02:29:00.000-07:00

In composing any list of important people in almost any field, everybody will have his or her own favorites. Also, in weight lifting, body building, physical fitness, aerobics, just to name a few areas, there are so many people who have contributed so much that it is difficult to pare the list down adequately. I have attempted, however, to include people who have repeatedly come to my attention since my first contact with weight training at age 16 in 1961. I have tried to put the emphasis on people who I felt were somewhat pivotal in the areas of weight lifting, body building, aerobics or general physical fitness. I am sure that many readers will have their own favorites.

Eugen Sandow The Non Pareil (1867 - 1925) Born in Germany, Eugen Sandow has often been called "Father of Modern Bodybuilding". Like Charles Atlas, as a youth, Sandow was a great admirer of Greek and Roman statues depicting athletes and gladiators. Sandow is considered to be a pioneer in bodybuilding because he measured statues to determine exact proportions and then worked to develop his own body parts to match them. In his late teens, while performing in strongman shows, he was spotted and taken on by legendary showman Florenz Ziegfeld. His big splash in America was at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. His intelligence, natural charm, and cultured appearance combined with his astounding physique and strength made him a star. Women actually paid him money for the privilege of feeling his muscles. For the men, he wrote widely on health, fitness, and bodybuilding. He, like Bernarr Macfadden and Charles Atlas offered a mail order course teaching his students how to achieve health and fitness. He eventually opened a progressive fitness club in London which stood in stark contrast to the dank, dark, and sweaty gyms of the day. Through his personality and innovation, he made exercise and physical fitness popular for a broader audience than had previously been reached.

Bernarr Macfadden (1868 - 1955) Born Bernard Adolphus McFadden in the state of Missouri, Bernarr Macfadden changed his first and last names because he felt that the new names had a greater appearance of strength. This was not the only strange activity of the man who advocated regular fasting, and some very esoteric health practices for the day and whose wife called him a kook. He combined his own personal views of fitness training and health practices into an entity he referred to as "Physical Culture" which became the title of his first magazine. He eventually became a bit of a publishing mogul, but was usually considered to be skirting the edges of reality in his obsessive approach to physical fitness. However, he inspired young men like Charles Atlas and brought the idea of health and fitness as a way of life to a broader portion of the public.

Charles Atlas (1892 - 1972) was born Angelo Siciliano in 1892 in Acri, Calabria, Southern Italy. In 1905, his parents emigrated to America with young Angelo. A few years later, he had changed his first name to "Charles" when he won a photo competition in a magazine run by the creator of "Physical Culture", Bernarr Macfadden. Young Charles was inspired to improve his physique.by Greek statues he saw at the Brookly Art Gallery. His first attempts at fitness was with improvised barbells made of sticks and stones. His observation of animals in the zoo, however, led him to base a series of fitness actions on their apparent means of maintaining their fitness in captivity. He called his discovery Dynamic Tension and went on to market his program to thousands of boys and men. On the path to becoming "Charles Atlas", he posed for statues of Atlas. Some of which were exhibited in the museum where he found his initial inspiration. At the time of his death, he was still exercising daily and running every other day. His course on Dynamic Tension had been the inspiration for over three million men and boys.

Bob Hoffman (1898 - 1985) Bob Hoffman is considered by many to be "Father of World Weightlifting" and was the founder of York Barbell. He was an athlete, nutritionist, weightlifter, coach and philanthropist. Although an exceptional athlete as a young boy, the mature Bob Hoffman was never a great weightlifter or coach. However, his vision, sense of purpose, and personal belief in the value of weightlifting led him to create York Barbell, a company which was long recognized as the leader in the manufacture of weightlifting equipment and which is still in existence today. while many felt his writings and opinions were "over the top", his personal bravery and willingness to face adversity was shown not only in his later life as he espoused and defended his positions, but also during World War I where he was awarded three Croix de Guerres with two palms and a silver star from France, The Belgian Order of Leopold by Belgium, the Italian War Cross by Italy, and the Purple Heart by America.

Jack LaLanne (1914 - present) Francois Henri LaLanne, better known to the American public as Jack and considered the "godfather of fitness", had a widely viewed TV show in the 1950's. Interestingly, his show was probably seen and followed by more women than men, and he may have been instrumental in promoting the idea that women could "get fit". Unlike many of the earlier proponents of fitness, Jack LaLanne studied his field very carefully and introduced what he felt his studies told him was the proper way to do things. He is still active in fitness today, marketing a wide line of fitness and nutritional products.

Joe Weider (1922 - present) Joe Weider is probably one of the most easily recognized figures in the field of bodybuilding today. He has been credited with not only being a driving force in the fields of body building and fitness, but has helped the careers of innumerable bodybuilders, not the least of which was a young Austrian named Arnold Schwarzenegger. He began his own fitness career by building his first barbells out of junked car wheels and axles. At age 17, with a stake of $7, he began his publishing career by rolling out the first issue of "Your Physique" in 1939. In 1968, he changed the name of the magazine to Muscle Builder, and in 1982 changed it again, this time to "Muscle & Fitness". Together with his brother and partner, Ben Weider, Joe Weider founded the International Federation of Body Builders (IFBB). His publications now include such diverse offerings as "Shape", "Men's Fitness", "Living Fit", "Prime Health and Fitness", "Fit Pregnancy", "Cooks", "Senior Golfer", and "Flex". Weider now offers a broad range of books on fitness and bodybuilding, nutritional supplements, and bodybuilding and weight lifting equipment and accessories.

Kenneth Cooper (1931 - present) A doctor (MD) and former Air Force officer, Dr. Ken Cooper is probably most widely known for his book, "Aerobics" which was published in 1968 and which was a driving force in getting me interested in fitness. Dr. Cooper's down-to-earth description of what he called the "Training Effect" as well as a formatted process by which one could achieve health and fitness coupled with vivid descriptions of what the personal effects would be for someone pursuing a fitness program, made his book a success. In fact, some have speculated that Kenneth Cooper's simple little book, "Aerobics", may have been the impetus which put physical fitness into the minds and hearts of millions around the world. Today, Dr. Cooper is the head of the Cooper Aerobics Center in Dallas.

Richard Simmons (1948 - present) Flamboyant is one word commonly used to describe the bouncy, incessantly cheerful aerobics guru, Richard Simmons. It has been estimated that Richard Simmons has helped and encouraged people around the world to lose over 3,000,000 pounds through a combination of healthy eating and energetic exercise. Simmons has produced several programs, such as "Disco Sweat", "Sweatin' to the Oldies", and "Stretchin' to the Classics" that all include his humor and signature high level of excitement. He has created instructional products and programs that range from gentle stretching for the elderly to highly intense aerobic workouts. My wife, who hates exercise, loves Richard Simmons and actually got to where she could follow some very intense routines although she had to begin by sitting on the couch and just making the hand movements.

Jane Fonda (1937 - present) Many would not recognize the famous star of such films as "Barbarella" and "Coming Home", and daughter of actor Henry Fonda, as a fitness pioneer or guru. For many years she was better known as an actress with a sexy body, a big name, and intense political views. However, beginning in 1982 and continuing into the mid 90's, Ms. Fonda released several fitness videos which became very popular, particularly with women. In fact, today, many people who know of Jane Fonda know her more as a proponent of fitness, health, exercise, yoga, and aerobics than as a famous movie star. While Jane Fonda made no immediate contributions to the science of health and fitness, she, like Richard Simmons, was able to elevate its stature among a large female audience and helped make it fashionable to work out, sweat, be fit, AND feminine. Jane Fonda may have helped move the public awareness of the value and virtues of exercise and fitness to the point where many people now consider a physically fit woman to be a sexy woman just by virtue of her fitness.

Well, there you have it. Nine people who in some way positively affected, altered, or enhanced the fields of body building, weight lifting, aerobics, or physical fitness in general.

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Become an Electronics Expert of the Skies as an Aviation Technician in Avionics Maintenance

2011-10-22T20:45:00.000-07:00

Some of the most important aspects of an airplane include electrical power distribution and control, navigation, flight instrumentation, communication and radar. Therefore, before a plane is cleared for takeoff, these features must be inspected, tested and double-checked to ensure that they are working correctly. The people assigned to this responsibility are Avionics Maintenance Technicians. Aircraft Technician Training prepares students for life and career in a disciplined way.

To become an Avionics Maintenance Tech, you must be comfortable working with your hands, technically skilled and be able to effectively use computers. You must also have a strong memory and the ability to quickly and accurately diagnose aircraft malfunctions. The quickness of the job is crucial, as you will work under pressure to meet critical deadlines. Lastly, Avionics Maintenance Technicians must be able to work in a small team or individually. Therefore, leadership skills and the ability to follow orders are essential.

All of these skills are taught in Centennial College’s Aviation Technician – Avionics Maintenance program. Spanning two years in length and resulting in an Ontario College Diploma, the program covers everything from basic electronics to sophisticated avionic systems used in modern aircraft. The emphasis is based on the aircraft’s various electronic systems. There are, however, prerequisites to enter the program. Centennial College expects students to posses at minimum an Ontario Secondary School Diploma or General Education Development or equivalent or be 19 years of age or older. Students must also have completed the compulsory English 12C or U or skills assessment or equivalent and Math 11M or U or 12C or U or skills assessment or equivalent.

Designed to prepare bench technicians for avionic-approved shops and aircraft manufacturing companies, the Aviation Technician – Avionics Maintenance program is both Transit Canada-approved Canadian Aviation Maintenance Council-certified. Your time in the program is equally split between theory and lab training with shop work on various aircraft. The lab and shop work is performed in a facility that is equipped with all the latest modern tools, which reflect current trends in the industry. The hands-on training is led by faculty members who have years of experience and extensive technical expertise, ensuring that training is geared directly to the needs of the aircraft industry. Another way students gain knowledge is through guest speakers and panelists, who share their real-life stories and expertise. The training in this Aviation Technician – Avionics Maintenance program is rounded out by maintenance servicing practices and procedures, as well as aviation regulation requirements.

To graduate, students must achieve a minimum C grade in all courses. Transport Canada accreditation requires both a minimum B grade in every course and an absentee rate of less than five per cent of the total program hours. Graduates who meet attendance requirements, project completion requirements, and attain 70 per cent in each course, are granted up to 18 months credit towards their Aircraft Maintenance Engineer’s licence (E rating). Aircraft Technician is exciting and adventurous as well.

Upon graduation, students may seek employment aircraft-related businesses (airlines, operators of light aircraft) as well as non-aircraft related electronic industries. In their field, Avionics Technicians maintain engine operations, flight patterns, navigation systems, radio communications, and weather radar systems. In essence, a flight cannot take off without the job of these professionals.

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Look and Feel Good With Fitness Training

2011-10-21T03:44:00.000-07:00

Your health and fitness are co-related. They are definitely linked to each other. There are many benefits that can be had from fitness training, not the least of all to your body but your heart too. This training should go hand in hand for a healthy lifestyle. Besides the obvious it isn’t really that hard. Even getting up and walking around for fifteen minutes or so can do a world of good for those who aren’t necessarily in the greatest shape. But to experience a lifestyle change, there is more to training than do any hardcore aerobics and exercises.

* To give direction to your exercise program, fitness training is the first step towards it. There are many ways to demonstrate that your fitness level is improving. Subjectively, you may seem more vibrant, shapely, and toned. Your envision can be turned into reality through this only. It has been seen that witnessing visible progress inspires even greater effort toward achieving goals.

* It is never too late to start. So it does not matter where your fitness level lies at present. Set a goal for you but it should be realistic one and work towards it. Give a beginning that is in your limits and they will expand. Before you start, have a warm up session. This helps your muscles to stretch easily and avoid the danger of injury. It is essential to do.

* Either you focus on particular part of the body or your goal is to attain complete health and fitness, work all the major sets of muscles. Perform exercises deliberately without any bounce backs. It is good if you learn to listen to your body. Monitor your heart rate at frequent intervals and see how it responds to variations.

* Having intervals during training is good. It gives muscles a time to rest and become stronger. Your aim should be to perform the exercise correctly rather than in hurry for more numbers.

With the passage of training, you will feel a healthy heart, less fatigue and of course loose weight. This is a simple training that can do a lot of good to your body and mind.

Sanjana Sharma is the author of this article. For more information about exercise equipment fitness, fitness equipment, exercise equipment and home fitness equipment please follow this link exercise equipment.

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Benefits of Barcode Technology in Educational Institutions

2011-10-19T08:11:00.000-07:00

With the growth in population and increased awareness of the importance of education, it became very hectic for the educational institutions to track their resources and students and manage their data. Now-a-days, educational instituions are using barcode technology to simplify this tedious work. Educational institutions are using barcode technology in a variety of applications such as tracking the students, teachers, products, and assets.

Benefits of barcode technology
The use of barcode technology in educational institutions has many benefits. Irrespective of the size, all institutions can benefit from barcode solutions to improve their operations. Barcode equipment provides better student and staff attendance management, more parental involvement in ascertaining student presence in college, improves student attendance ratio, reduces errors in administrative work and enhances security. There are many benefits of barcode technology in educational institutions, whether it is in the administrative office, student registration office, cafeteria, nurse’s office, or library. Some of the common benefits are:

Streamlines administrative tasks
Barcode technology is used to increase efficiency, accuracy and productivity in the administrative tasks within any department of the educational institution. Administrative tasks like inventory maintenance, document control, ordering and billing can be enhanced by applying barcode technology. Barcode technology helps in monitoring the student enrollments, personal information, and assessment of students, staff and authorities. It also helps in maintaining accurate information about the equipment, financial data, GST records, time tables, room allocations, and much more.

Improves attendance procedures
With the help of barcode technology, administrators can easily and accurately record attendance of students and staff. It also helps in checking period wise attendance and performance. It guarantees accuracy, saves time and also eliminates a lot of labor. Once the information gets uploaded into the database, it will be very easy for the administrators and teachers to identify the student who skipped a class. Providing instant results, it helps the teachers identify and communicate with parents of absentees. This kind of constant monitoring discourages the students from skipping the classes.

Enhances security
Implementing barcode technology in student identification cards is very useful in enhancing security. They provide instant visual identification for teachers, staff and security. Barcode technology makes it very easy to identify the students of their institution. It helps in identifying visitors and strangers entering the school premises. It also helps in tracking the students’ whereabouts and their social behavior.

Tracks library books
Barcode technology is very useful in tracking library books and periodicals. It enables the library to be completely automated. It reduces the work load of the library staff by processing more items in less time. It also increases accuracy of tracking books in the library. It provides automated check out, check in and renewal processes. It helps to easily sort the returned library items and also in rapid updating of the library database, which improves circulation capabilities. Its ultimate goal is to keep a track of books and ease the work load of the librarian.

Cuts down costs related to manual data entry
In schools, a lot of data entry is required to track the students’ information. It is a very tedious task that requires documenting different steps and transmitting information when required. In any department of the educational institution, barcode equipment or technology eliminates paperwork, cuts down the data entry errors, and allows instant wireless transmission. Manual data entry requires double the effort and has a large number of errors. This can be overcome by using barcode equipment. It is very helpful in cutting costs and also decreases manual data entry errors.

Asset tracking
Because of increase in the number of portable IT equipment and other teaching aids in schools, it is very important to track all the assets in order to prevent misplacement and theft. Asset tracking is one of the best uses of barcode technology. It helps in tracking non-collection items like desks, computers, lab equipments, tools and AV equipment. It will be very easy to record asset ID and location, which will be linked to a fixed asset tracking system. Accurate tracking of the assets using barcode technology also helps in insurance claims in the case of any accident or natural calamity.

Barcode technology is an important identification tool for educational institutions. It helps to increase student security, reduce costs, and decrease administration errors. It provides accurate information and has become a mainstay of many educational institutions.

For over 20 years, System ID has provided automation solutions and barcoding equipment to a wide range of large and small companies in virtually every industry sector. System ID offers more than 10,000 brand name products and services such as symbol barcode scanner and zebra printers.

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Advantages of free classifieds websites

2011-10-17T13:55:00.000-07:00

Free classifieds advertising is one the most powerful tool of online advertising over the internet. You can promote your business at thousands of free classifieds websites. You can sell your old stuff or you can advertise your business free of cost by submitting free classifieds advertisements. Also many peoples are will to buy different items. So classifieds adverting is right place to sell online.

There are many advantages of free classifieds advertising. First, it is totally free of cost. So you need not to pay for the advertisements. So it saves your money Second, you can find the targeted customers from you local are with free local classifieds. It also saves you time for your business promotion.

If you own a business website, then you can get free traffic to your website with these free advertising programs. Many classifieds sites allow adding your business link with your advertisement. So you get direct traffic to your website with spending money. These sites have huge visitors daily. So you can sell your stuff within few days. Thus it saves your money on website promotion.

If you are looking for some service in your local area then it can be easily found with local online advertisement. You can find jobs, home repair services, car rental services, computer repair service, laptops, old mobiles and other electronics gazettes, home tutors for your child, real estate agents, pets and pet related services matrimonial service as well as cars and bike for sale on these sites.

Posting a free classified hardly take 1 or 2 minutes. After signing up to these sites, you can advertise your business according to your city as well as local area. Within few minutes your advertisement goes like and available to website visitors. You can post unlimited number of classifieds. There is no limit to advertise.

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Submit classifieds at our free classifieds website to get maximum expose to your business. Post free classifieds and sell your old stuff instantly.

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Choosing Conservatory Heating Option

2011-10-16T13:35:00.000-07:00

Conservatories have come a long way since they first became popular, but historically there has always been the issue of your room becoming too hot in summer and then too cold in winter. To get around this problem and to ensure you can use your conservatory or orangery all year round, you need to think about heating.

Conservatories and orangeries generally lose heat up to 8 times faster than a normal cavity wall. Heat escaping can partly be remedied by double or triple glazing, as well as by using window blinds. This all helps since the heat built up during the day can then be trapped for use later on. Given all of this, one always needs to consider the heating options as none of them will completely counter the effects of heat loss, especially if you are thinking of using your conservatory or orangery throughout the winter.

The question is what heating options are there and why should you consider one over the other. This article will help you in this process.

Electric Underfloor Heating
This is a very convenient way to heat your conservatory and over recent years has grown in popularity. One of the major advantages is that it is invisible, meaning you do not have to worry about floor or wall radiators that can then complicate either the interior design or the living space. After all, one cannot place furniture against radiators without encountering other issues!

The other advantage of electric under floor heating is that the heating can be isolated. It will run off a 13 amp plug (UK) so it can be easily turned on or off without affecting the rest of the central heating at your home.

The main drawback with underfloor heating was the limits it placed on you regarding flooring. Historically, it used to be recommended with ceramic or stone flooring, with wooden or cork flooring avoided because of the fear of damage. These days, as the market has grown and the heating systems become more sophisticated, this problem can now largely be overcome. Speak to a reputable conservatory company to advise you on this matter to ensure you get the right system.

Water Underfloor Heating
This system is very similar to the traditional gas boiler and radiator system most people have in their homes in the UK. This system works by tapping into your current boiler and piping warm water through plastic pipes hidden underneath your conservatory or orangery floor.

The main advantage of heating your conservatory this way is because you have this system already. So assuming your current boiler will handle the additional demand placed upon it, it will often be a cost effective solution.

This raises a potential problem, you must make sure your current system will cope. In addition to this you must also remember that it is not an isolated system, so if you want the heating on, that means turning on your whole central heating. Keep in mind the point above about heat loss and there may be times where you just do not want the main system on just for your conservatory. If this occurs you can always turn off your other radiators, but that does not isolate the heating completely. This is not ideal when you just want to quickly warm up the conservatory but not the rest of the building.

CONSERVATORY RADIATORS
Radiators of course come in two forms, plumbed in and electric. The plumbed in versions are great so long as the capacity issue mentioned above is not an issue here. Electric versions are very practical and work independently of your main central heating. They can either be portable or hard wired. The portable variety can be very flexible although do not look as sophisticated as any other options covered here; the lose wires contribute to this significantly.

One key factor to keep in mind is that radiators take space and visually impact upon interior design. Many people live with this very happily but keep in mind the size of the dwarf walls that the glass sits upon. Adding small radiators to these walls gives the conservatory or orangery more of a chunky feel and pushes furniture into the room. So for smaller conservatories where space is more critical, you need to think through interior design considerations to make sure this is not restrictive.

CONSERVATORY AIR CONDITIONING
Air condition units also make good heaters as they use the heat pump to take warm air from the outside and then direct it within the conservatory or orangery. This makes the unit very versatile because it can cool your room down while it is hot and then heat it when the temperatures drop in the evening.

This heat pump can work all throughout the winter although it may not be sufficient for very cold days. The designer from a reputable conservatory company will be able to calculate the heat loss specific to your conservatory, and from that calculate the right unit you will need.

Breckenridge offers the most comprehensive choice of conservatory, contemporary extensions and contemporary conservatories in a choice of materials as well as a range of pool enclosures, summer houses and windows & doors.

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Malayalam Singers – They can Produce Real Beats!

2011-10-14T18:59:00.000-07:00

These days, it’s the demand for Malayalam singers seem to be too high. Due to such reason so many youngsters are moving for this trend in order to find a successful career in Malayalam singing. As far as the Malayalam songs are concerned, these musical versions are highly connected with the traditional and cultural values for this part of the world. Kerala is the land where you can find many traditions and cultures and that are all visible in Malayalam singing style. There are so many singing formats available in India and Malayalam singing is one of the best formats among them.

Such music belongs to the land of Kerala. You can easily indentify the Malayalam music due to its unique beats. The cultural legacy for Kerala is always high and the philosophical values are always great for this state. If you like to have instrumental beats with your music, then start looking for the best Malayalam singers and their music.? This part of the world is known for its magical values that have been produced by the Mother Nature. In Kerala you can find the Mother Nature at its best and the impact of such aspect is quite apparent in the singing style of Malayalam singers.

These singers are also playing a great part for Indian music while trying to take it for a new height. So, this time you need to feel the real charm of Malayalam music and that you can only achieved with a unique approach with the help of the internet. It’s the internet from where you can collect more details about the Malayalam singers that have managed to acquire enormous popularity in the country and some of them are:

AnnupamaaHariharanJayachandranVani JairamK. J. YesudasVijay YesudasG. Venugopal

While these artists composed some handful of songs from the Malayalam movies, and their contributions to drama songs from 70s to early 90s were astounding. The talent, which wasn’t appreciated enough by malayalees over years, and you can collect & publicize the works for general consumption. You can very easily listen or download the Malayalam songs online, as there are many websites that will help you get the right music that you are looking for.

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Card Printing for the Penny Pincher

2011-10-13T11:44:00.000-07:00

It is always a rule of thumb for businesspersons to save on costs but do not forgo quality. It is a very wise dictum that anyone should consider primarily.

That is, anyone who has been weighing the pros and cons and considering different printing options. Not only is this applicable in business deals and printing transactions, though. Every one of us should also keep this in mind when making decisions, – important or trivial, such as buying household furnishings to purchasing grocery items, among others. We may have to cut on costs, but we should not short shift ourselves with quality. Money does not grow on trees, as the cliché goes, so we need to make the most out of it. Quality and costs should always be our main considerations.

Mass production of materials for publicity and marketing can be a challenge for any businessperson. From the design and layout to actual printing and shipping and delivery, there are lots of considerations to keep in mind. If you are working on a tight budget, you would surely have a hard time keeping the costs to a minimum. In order to get the best services possible, there are people who might say that the most expensive the better. This, however, is a big misconception. You can still find the best services possible that are within your reach. You just need to be a little creative as well as persistent. These two qualities can help you out in producing your print materials, such as brochures and card, without big costs.

In card printing, for example, you do not have to get the services of big shot professional designers to give you a unique design template. On your own, you can create a design template that you can use for your post cards, thank you cards, or business cards – or any marketing material you need and for distribution to your target clientele. Make the most out of your creative skills. If you have time to spare, you can make a design and lay it out using design software that you are proficient in. For example, you can use Adobe Photoshop and Corel Draw. These two can give you maximum control over the aesthetics. Use your highly-active imagination in making visually attractive cards that any person can keep or store.

On the other hand, you can also make use of design templates being offered online and even offline. There are a lot of companies that provide a wide selection of templates for any card, in any occasion. You just need to take a look, compare designs, and select the one that best fits your preference. You can also use design templates that are available over your computer, such as in computer programs like Microsoft Publisher. These templates are easy to use. You just need to take your time editing the features as well as the information that it should contain. You can replace photos or images, change fonts and colors, and improve the text. Do not forget to include your contact information, too!

Many issues have to be looked on when you are involved in card printing. There is no doubt that you can find printing services that offer quality. However, what makes the difference is the cost. Do not limit yourself when it comes to card printing. There are options that can help you save costs, so you just need to be a little creative.

Kaye Z. Marks is an avid writer and follower of the developments in print cards or card printing industry that help businesses in their marketing and advertising campaigns.

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Alcohol Use Can Affect Your Insurance Premium Rates

2011-10-12T04:47:00.000-07:00

Now-a-days, alcohol abuse has become common among all age groups. Many people are abusing alcohol despite being aware of its harmful effects. More than half of the Americans are abusing alcohol. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 50 percent of adults are current regular drinkers (at least 12 drinks) and 14 percent of adults were infrequent drinkers (1-11 drinks) in 2008. National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) stated that 51.6 percent of Americans abused alcohol in 2008.

Alcohol abuse leads to increased health risks including coronary heart diseases, heart attacks, obesity, chronic pancreatitis, fetal damage, hardening of liver, chronic liver diseases, blackouts and memory lapses, severe cognitive effects, lack of co-ordination, irregular heart beat, coma and even death. There will be decrease in life expectancy in alcohol abusers by 10 to 15 years. Since the alcohol abuse impacts the life expectancy of the abuser, the insurance companies distinguish between the abusers and non-abusers. Alcohol abusers have to pay huge insurance premiums when compared to non-abusers.

Anything more than social drinking may result in higher life insurance premiums
If a person is a heavy drinker, he has to pay high insurance premiums. Generally, more than two-three drinks a day will knock a person out of regular life insurance rates. When a person applies for a insurance premium, he is inquired about alcohol consumption. The person has to undergo few medical examinations in order to make sure that he/she is not an alcohol abuser. The person has to undergo liver function test called Carbohydrate Deficient Transferrin (CDT) test. By CDT test, one can know the liver enzyme level. If a person is a heavy drinker, then the CDT test would show elevated liver enzyme levels. The policy of that person would be denied or the policy will be issued, but with higher policy rates.

DUI conviction results in higher life insurance rates
DUI (Driving Under Influence) fatality is a serious issue in the United States. All of the 50 states in United States and the District of Columbia prohibits driving with Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) of 0.08 percent or more. If violated, the person will be under DUI conviction. Once a person gets convicted under DUI, he/she should wait at least a year to get life insurance policy offer – that too with high insurance premiums. Insurers will also check if the person has successfully completed the drug treatment program, usually ordered by the court after DUI conviction.

It’s an uphill battle even for recovering alcoholics
Even recovering alcoholics or those who left alcohol long back, may still find it difficult to find a low cost life insurance policy. The person may be denied insurance or would have to pay high insurance rates because of high health risks associated with alcohol for many years. Generally, an insurance application will be either declined or postponed within first two years of recovery from alcohol.

As we discussed above, alcohol abuse can have a major influence on your insurance premium rates. Either the applicant’s insurance policy will get rejected or has to pay high life insurance premiums rates. Therefore, it is necessary to avoid much alcohol intake to enjoy the benefits of insurance.

Drug Test Strips is an online store offering reliable, easy to use and FDA approved Drug testing kit at affordable prices. Our Marijuana drug test strip is a rapid urine screening test that can be performed without the use of an instrument. Our Nicotine test kit is a device used for the detection of cotinine in human urine.

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Basic Guide in Post Card Printing for Beginners

2011-10-10T14:52:00.000-07:00

The task of printing a post card can be daunting, especially for a beginner. Anyone who has not created or printed a post card on his or her own before may find it hard to begin.

One, there may be hesitations. Questions, such as, can I make this on time? and will the receiver approve of my creation? can cloud a beginner mind. Aside from that, they have a lot of considerations, design, paper, print, etc. that they do not know how to start, which step to take first, what to choose, and where to purchase, among others. If you are on the same predicament, take a deep breathe.

Let us help you out. The following are some guidelines that you need to keep in mind if you are tasked to do postcard printing:

- Here is an important question that you have to ask yourself before you begin, what is your end goal? Identify first your motive, unless you have just decided out of whim. Are you going to send greetings to your family members, friends and acquaintances? Or are you going to distribute it among your clients or customers? Introduce your products and services to your target clientele? Post cards can be used for a variety of purposes. You can use it to promote your business, send messages to your social circle, and keep in touch with your family or friends.

- Based on your intent, you can create a theme. You may need to produce your cards en masse, so you need to have a unifying concept. Mass production is not just practical. It can also help you save costs. Take your time in visualizing what you want your post card to look like. Once you have finalized your design ideas, you can already create your design template. Consider your design template as an art assignment. Use your imagination, your technical knowhow, and your creative skills in creating a unique design template that can appeal to your receiver.

- You can choose your design software in creating a design template. You can go opt for Adobe Photoshop or Corel Draw which can enable you to make great designs from scratch. If you are not that proficient in these design software, you can also use Microsoft Publisher, which is suitable for beginners. Find the design software that suits you well. Make use of colors and photographs to create a very captivating design. Apply basic design principles, such as balance and symmetry, too.

- Make your message clear. As you may have limited space for text, you need to make your message short and direct to the point. This can be tricky especially if you have a lot of things to say. Draft your message and edit it not just once, twice, or thrice. Write a message that contains all you want to say without making it letter-like.

- Once you are finished with your design and message, print your post card. Print a test page first though so you can find out first if you need to make necessary changes. What appears on your computer monitor may be different from the print out. Produce your materials en masse if you are already satisfied with how your post card looks like. Invest on quality materials; your paper and ink should be able to make your print look professional.

Kaye Z. Marks is an avid writer and follower of the developments in post card printing industry that help businesses in their marketing and advertising campaigns.

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Essential Recommendations To Grow Hair Strong

2011-10-09T02:04:00.000-07:00

Surely, excellent tresses will certainly make anyone a lot more attractive. That is why a great number of men and women try to find useful hair growth tips that might help grow the hair stronger. However, in order to realize this aim it will require a lot of persistence and also dedication.

Furthermore, suggestions to grow excellent hair touch upon some things that everyone must keep away from. Prevent your locks froom tying way too tight – simply give them possibility to breathe easily. You shouldn’t be too hard while brushing the tresses – it’s possible to harm follicles of hair as well as to cause itchiness of the headskin. Avoid coloring, blow drying, and perming for the reason that pose a threat to follicles of hair and stop hair regrowth. Prevent your strands from sunlight due to the fact strong ultraviolet rays pose a large hazard to the hair as well as headskin.

Trim the locks regularly – every 3 or 4 months – to prevent splitting of the ends. However, the hair don’t grow faster or even better because of this, though it will appear more organized. Some people prefer never to trim their tresses in any way since they prefer it long. But if you consider things, there isn’t any real need in avoiding hair trimming and keep your strands messy. Generally each and every hair grows around one cm every 4 weeks. Thus, once you cut off one or two cm in twelve or sixteen weeks, you are likely to grow your locks a couple of cm longer.

Keep your hair clean and also don’t allow oil and debris close the skin pores. Large amount of bacteria may also result in scalp infection. This all results in rather unfavorable environment for healthy hair regrowth and will gradually lead to hair falling out. Wash the head at least twice every week. Make sure you make use of a good quality shampoo or conditioner that is best for your hair type.

The body system must have plenty of water to be thoroughly hydrated, take away harmful toxins and stay strong. Thus, probably one of the most helpful hair growth tips will be to take in a considerable amount of h2o along with consume juicy vegatables and fruits consistently. It helps you have your scalp hydrated, preventing hair dryness and also increasing natural hair regrowth.

Our hair is generally comprised of the essential protein keratin, which is its primary structural substance. Sufficient ingestion of high protein foodstuff is very important for keratin production and, thus, for strong tresses. And vice versa, lack of protein in one’s diet program might possibly lead to a lot of difficulties with hair, which include loss of hair.

It is vital to have enough vitamins everyday, because the lack of them will certainly trigger loss of hair. Nutritional vitamins A, B, C, and especially biotin, boost new hair growth. Therefore, your diet program must consists of such vitamin rich meals as green beans, chard, liver, grapefruits, and nuts.

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The Growing Popularity of Fitness Boot Camps

2011-10-07T09:08:00.000-07:00

Ever been to boot camps where you get orders from loudmouthed trainors and all that jazz, er dirt? If not, you have been missing half of your life.

Boot camp is from the tough footwear that military boot camp trainees use. Back then, boot camp training is just for problem kids. Now, it's also for adults with problem bodies.

More and more people are talking about fitness boot camps and each day more and more signs up for them. Why? Here is a number of definitely valid reasons behind the increasing popularity of fitness boot camps:

1. Time EfficiencySince attending fitness boot camp training entails more preparation for disciplinary actions in case one decides to become a slacker, one learns more time management when doing fitness boot camp routines. Unlike other fitness training systems, boot camps make individuals work out the whole body while pressured for time. Usually, within just an hour of the usual fitness boot camp workout, one can very well train the whole body.

2. Health Benefits.As many workout trainings provide, fitness boot camps also have various health benefits. Since an hour of boot camp training can already pack an innumerable amount of exercise, the health benefits abound, too. The strength of the muscles and their definition will surely be improved. Cardiovascular health will be augmented, too. Flexibility will also be improved, thus less injury for boot camp trainees, in the long run, of course. Many enlistees say that fat burning can be easily achieved through the increasing fitness levels employed during training. And this increasing level of physical range makes it less boring to enlistees and more beneficial to their strength and endurance. Here are the usual mix-up of the physical activities that fitness boot camp have for enlistees:

- abdominal exercises - free weight exercises

- muscle strength and conditioning exercises

- calisthenics

- military fitness drills

- speed and strength training drills

- stamina building endurance training

- hill or stair climbing

- rope jumping

- obstacle course

- pilates

- track speed training

- yoga

3. Outdoor Venue.Exercising indoors could be really boring oftentimes. Aside from seeing those old walls and hearing the same music or noise at home, there's just not much stimulation for someone to exercise when at home. This is another popular reason for the fame of fitness boot camps - experiencing nature while it keeps you fit. Usually, fitness boot camps are being held in parks or even in locations with lots of natural views like beaches. Fresh air and the scenes make one always look forward to the next fitness training.

4. For the Gung-Ho.As many knows, any boot camp training, even fitness trainings require a big amount of cooperation from the enlistees. Obstacle courses and all those occasions wherein you will rub yourself raw with dirt while fitness training is best enjoyed by those who don't mind experiencing them, of course - the adventurous ones. But for those who were so spick and span and tamed all their lives, this one great time to get wild and dirty while being mindful of your fitness boot camp instructors' orders, of course. This is because instructors, who are mostly retired military personnel, know their position so much that they can impress it too well at times. If you are not so self-disciplined, learning it from the fitness boot camp training will do you good. It will not only make you physically fit but also make you learn a thing or two on how to mingle well with others.

5. Camaraderie is Best Enjoyed.Any boot camp training usually imposes the spirit of camaraderie since there usually are the buddy-buddy activities. There are even disciplinary actions wherein your partner may be punished for any offense that you incur. With all the group activities in fitness boot camps, it will be hard for one to not gain a friend after the training. The hustle and bustle of our busy lives make many of us yearn for the action-packed experience provided by fitness boot camps.

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When the Morning Dawns

2011-10-06T03:26:00.000-07:00

The following article covers a topic that has recently moved to center stage--at least it seems that way. If you've been thinking you need to know more about unconditional love, here's your opportunity.

When darkness turns to day, the sun moves over the horizon and touches everything in sight. This movement across the landscape brightens everything. Such an illumination awakens us all. We rise with energy moving in and through us allowing us to create a new day. A day unique from all the rest and creatively woven into our soul.

This is the landscape of our soul. As you can see, nature has a way of showing us just how powerful we are. The same power that created the moon and the stars and the movement of all space and time lies within the human heart. It is the heart of creation itself, and perhaps, the heart of our Creator.

Human beings are fortunate to be able to be aware of our awareness. This awareness gives us an opportunity to reflect on our soul and find blessing in being alive. Our consciousness of a creative force inside us guiding us into this world, through it, and eventually to our eternal home allows us to fulfill a purpose on this earth.

Such a purpose is beyond our own ability to really know. Yet, we can open our heart enough to allow our purpose to find us. This is done by recognizing that the things in life that really matter ARE the things in life that isn't matter.

Yes, it is our soul's longing to fulfill the purpose for which we came to earth for. No one really knows how a baby is conceived totally. Science and human understanding still hasn't been able to fully comprehend such a force of nature. We can only embrace what is beyond us and find a way to bring into being forces of nature such as a tiny child.

When a child is born, we are in awe. The miracle of birth creates something inside us all. It is the remembrance that life does not come from us. Instead, life comes through us. As such, we are living in a dream come true. All of us are probably living our soul's purpose more than we know, and even, can know. It is the mystery of all mysteries.

This does not explain why some of us find peace and other's find pain. But, such a philosophy will enable us all to find grace in knowing our lives create in our world facets of ourselves we all are a part of. An understanding of such grace gives every one of us a chance to find mercy and grace and the same unconditional love we came into the world with when we were born.

Samuel Oliver, author of, "What the Dying Teach Us: Lessons on Living"
For more on this author; http://www.soulandspirit.org

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Philosophy as a science

2011-10-06T00:20:00.000-07:00

Philosophy is considered a science but it is difficult to say, when one has to compare with an ordinary science, for example biology, or chemistry. This is a question that turns into a burning problem among the scientists and linguists all over the world. Can philosophy be a science? What does philosophy operate with? It operates with categories, which can be as wide and as interchangeable as one can only imagine. Ordinary science operates with definitions, which are quite limited in their field of research. Ordinary science uses terms and laws of that very science to continue the research, uniting with the others in very rare cases. Philosophy gets into the sense of every science trying to achieve results.

We also can not call philosophy a supra-science, for it also uses hypothesis and arguments to state the opinion. But there is the obvious thing: there are now laws in philosophy and never will be, for the science changes with the age, the needs, beliefs and requirements of the citizens. To prove your opinion, you can write the definition essay and state all the facts and arguments you know to prove one way or another. This is also a nice way to research the problem and see what the solution is. But you have to research it carefully; otherwise definition essays will not be fruitful. As all sciences philosophy has gone through its stages of development. Some scientists believe that the crib of philosophy was mythology and religion. If to see the principles of life and some primitive morals stated in some myths we may see that the statement is quite true and philosophy still continues to develop out of social beliefs and ideas. Philosophy is a science which is obligatory learned by every college student in order for him to establish his own philosophy of life. It is quite exciting to find answers to ever existing questions: who am I? What do I know? What can I know? What am I destined to do? Here is one more interesting observation. You can see that all famous philosophers were researching other science fields also. For example, Freud, Yung, Kafka and others were doing research in linguistics and social sciences. Their numerous creations are the pride of human history for they revealed some secrets that remained undiscovered for a long time before their great contributions.

There are so many currents and branches, so many schools of philosophy that it is hard to decide, which one do you prefer and agree with. This much depends on the country, family, society you live in. This is one more difference between philosophy and other natural sciences. The law is stable for any country; gravity exists in India, same as in Brazil. Philosophy is a hard science, for it is very difficult to understand the sense of the dogma reading it only once. It is of course, not easy, but gives credit for you if you get interested and somewhere, being at the social event you quote one of the famous doctors of philosophy and make a great impression of an educated and intelligent personality.

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Part 4 - The Road to Fitness Success - Guarantee Results Through Action!

2011-10-05T21:53:00.000-07:00

Only through action will you achieve your fitness, health and physique goals.

* Just thinking about it won't work.
* Just wanting it won't work.
* Just learning about it won't work.

Only doing it will work.

Up until this point you have cultivated a burning desire and learned how to make informed decisions about fitness products... it is now time to put your plan into action!

Do Not Become... A Workout Collector

I know people who collect workouts.

They scour the web printing off every free workout they can get their hands on, they buy product after product because the marketing was enticing and they have an impressive library of workout books.

Unfortunately, collecting workouts will have zero positive effect in bringing you closer to your goals.

Only the physical training you do as a result of the fitness product will bring you closer to your goals.

You Must Become... A Physical Training Practitioner

If you have done everything correctly so far, you have a burning, secret desire that can only be satisfied by success as well as the knowledge to make an informed decision about the fitness product right for you... so pick one and get started.

Formulate your secret plan and put it into action.

You will improve and succeed as a result of the time and effort spent actually doing what the fitness product says.

And remember... you are putting in the time and effort now for results you will see later.

Be patient.

You Never Fail... You Only Learn

Your physical training is a learning experience... so be prepared to make changes. If the fitness product you choose does not get the results you want... you did not fail.

You learned what does not work for you!

Use this knowledge when choosing another fitness product... one with a different approach.

If the fitness product you choose only takes you so far... you did not fail.

You learned about a certain type of physical training and the reaction your body has to it!

Use this knowledge when choosing another fitness product... one with a similar approach.

If you got everything you want from the fitness product but feel like you need a change... you did not fail.

You learned what works for you!

Use this knowledge when choosing another fitness product... now you know what to look for.

Never Give Up!

Once you start... don't stop.

Keep at it consistently enough to be able to make an honest assessment of the fitness product you are using.

If you decide it is not working for you... don't just give up.

Figure out why it was not working for you and look for a fitness product to help you move forward.

Assessment, modification and change are forms of action.

Never just throw your hands in the air and say, "I'm never going to be fit, healthy and attractive."

You will, you just have to find the fitness product right for you... and the more experience you have the easier the search becomes.

Keep wanting, learning and applying until you get what you want!

After all... you can not fail when failure ceases to be an option.

Success comes from doing... so be a doer!

There is no excuse that cannot be overcome if the desire is great enough.

Conclusion

Now YOU know the secret to fitness success... and the responsibility to use it falls solely on your shoulders.

Take the responsibility, fuel your secret desire to be the best you can be (and better than others), choose fitness products wisely that are already getting spectacular results and act.

The road to fitness success is clear... but it still is a road you must choose to travel!

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Peace On Earth, A Wonderful Wish, But No Way

2011-10-05T19:35:00.000-07:00

When asked, "If you could wish for one thing only, what would that wish be?" almost everyone; from beauty pagent contestants, to politicians, to religious leaders, to children, to the average person on the street states, "Peace On Earth" or "An end to all wars". Those wishes, while exemplary, are meaningless. As long as humans exist there will never be peace on earth.

Throughout the history of humankind there has never been peace on earth. Cavemen fought other cavemen over territory, food and even women. Cain killed Abel over God's respect. Gabriel blew down the walls of Jericho. America fought the Revolutionary War for freedom and brother fought against brother in our Civil War for more freedom. There have always been wars and there will always be wars.

As long as humans can think, there will be wars. Wars over such concepts as freedom, honor, dignity, etc.. Wars over territory, greed, power, prejudice, etc.. War is a part of human nature. For example, every human being is prejudiced. If they don't like some race, nationality or religion, they don't like short or tall or fat or skinny or smart or not smart or loud or quiet people. Some people don't like children, some people don't like old people, some people don't like people with pets, or people that play their music too loud, or bad drivers, or people that believe in God or people that don't believe in God. What is right and proper to some people can be wrong or even enraging to other people.

Religion can not stop wars, in fact many wars are fought over religion (Note: I believe that religion is used as an excuse for war not the real reason for war.). Christians fought against Muslims during the Crusades, Many Muslims want death for all non believers. The Catholic Church killed heretics during the Inquisition. The Nazis killed millions of Jews and then started killing Catholics. The Russians under Stalin killed anyone even remotly religious. Protestants killed other Protestants for being the wrong type of Protestant. Muslims killed Muslims for being the wrong type of Muslim. Don't forget about Atheists (I believe that Atheism is also a religion, it is a religion of non belief.), Stalin was an Atheist and wanted to get rid of all religion. Most of China's leaders are Atheists and have jailed and killed huge numbers of religious people. History is rife with various types of religious battles.

The main reason for war, however, is the lust for power. The power to make others do and believe as you do and believe, the power to make other people render unto you what you believe is rightfully yours, the power to make other people treat you as you believe you should be treated, the power to gain what you want (ie: money, love, respect, etc.), the power to punish others for doing things that you don't believe they should do, the power to keep other from having things or thoughts that you don't have. In other words, the power to be, in some ways God, to make everyone else in your image with you as their ruler.

As long as people have the ability to think, there will be greed, envy, prejudice and anger. As long as those things exist, there will be wars. Most people believe, either religiously or secularly, in the rules set down in the Ten Commandments, but very few people can follow those rules all of the time because our ability to think causes us to want. Wanting causes us to break some or all of the rules. Humans are not perfect. If they were they would not be human.

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Enlightenment is not just one state

2011-10-05T14:39:00.000-07:00

Many people has the notion that enlightenment is one state. Many also believe that when it is attained, a person is forever in that state.

The following is not a definitive article on this subject. It is just an expression of my own thoughts.

My opinion is that enlightenment is not just one state but is a progressive and gradual establishing of states of consciousness.

I, myself have not reach the end of the road. But from years on a spiritual quest, I can safely say that enlightenment happens in a series or stages of self-realisations and self-discoveries.

Usually there is a difference between an initial awakening and a later stabilisation of that stage that happens through practice or experiences. The initial awakenings are new discoveries about the dynamics of consciousness, while the stabilisation is the assimilation of what is being discovered into one's life experience. Sometimes, a new discovery can completely over-rule or modify upon an older one.

Almost all stages of enlightenment can be said to be associated with Presence. However, the enlightening Presence comes in various degrees of intensity and clarity. The degree of intensity is directly dependent on the level and depth of one's clarity as well as one's realisations/discoveries.

Also, as one progresses along, the relationship or connections of oneself to the universe and existence at large also becomes clearer.

Below very briefly illustrates the progressive and stage-based nature of enlightenment:

When one first begin meditating, one may first experience the all-pervading Presence. This Presence, is most often experienced when thoughts are momentarily suspended. This Presence which exists in the Eternal Present Moment is our true self.

However such an experience can only be classified as an awakening to the true self.. which is no-self. This is because, after the meditation, the Presence seems to have disappeared. One cannot understand and find the connection of presence to our everyday life. Therefore one will have difficulty re-acquiring the Presence. And it takes many stages and series of realisation to understand the relationship of Presence to our phenomenal world. It can be said that the prolonged sustaining of Presence is dependent on the stages and depth of realisation.

Also, during the earlier stages we may mistaken another state to be the pure presence. For example, we may mistaken 'I AM' for pure presence. This is because the thinking mind has created a reflective image of Pure Presence. This reflection of the absolute is 'I AM'.

Usually, in order to pass through the 'I AM' stage, the person must move unto even deeper understandings. These understandings may include realising that one's personality is not the doer of action. This stage may persist for a while before the person realises the illusion of subject-object division. This stage involves recognising the hypnotic impression of there being an observer and the being observed. Here is where one begins to see through the illusionary nature of our phenomenal world.

I cannot comment on the stages before me as they are beyond me. Nevertheless, one can still see from the above description that enlightenment is not so straight-forward after all.

For your necessary discernment. Thank you for reading.

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The Science of Superstitions

2011-10-05T10:54:00.000-07:00

"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science."

Albert Einstein, The World as I See It, 1931
The debate between realism and anti-realism is, at least, a century old. Does Science describe the real world - or are its theories true only within a certain conceptual framework? Is science only instrumental or empirically adequate or is there more to it than that?

The current - mythological - image of scientific enquiry is as follows:

Without resorting to reality, one can, given infinite time and resources, produce all conceivable theories. One of these theories is bound to be the "truth". To decide among them, scientists conduct experiments and compare their results to predictions yielded by the theories. A theory is falsified when one or more of its predictions fails. No amount of positive results - i.e., outcomes that confirm the theory's predictions - can "prove right" a theory. Theories can only be proven false by that great arbiter, reality.

Jose Ortega y Gasset said (in an unrelated exchange) that all ideas stem from pre-rational beliefs. William James concurred by saying that accepting a truth often requires an act of will which goes beyond facts and into the realm of feelings. Maybe so, but there is little doubt today that beliefs are somehow involved in the formation of many scientific ideas, if not of the very endeavor of Science. After all, Science is a human activity and humans always believe that things exist (=are true) or could be true.

A distinction is traditionally made between believing in something's existence, truth, value of appropriateness (this is the way that it ought to be) - and believing that something. The latter is a propositional attitude: we think that something, we wish that something, we feel that something and we believe that something. Believing in A and believing that A - are different.

It is reasonable to assume that belief is a limited affair. Few of us would tend to believe in contradictions and falsehoods. Catholic theologians talk about explicit belief (in something which is known to the believer to be true) versus implicit one (in the known consequences of something whose truth cannot be known). Truly, we believe in the probability of something (we, thus, express an opinion) - or in its certain existence (truth).

All humans believe in the existence of connections or relationships between things. This is not something which can be proven or proven false (to use Popper's test). That things consistently follow each other does not prove they are related in any objective, "real", manner - except in our minds. This belief in some order (if we define order as permanent relations between separate physical or abstract entities) permeates both Science and Superstition. They both believe that there must be - and is - a connection between things out there.

Science limits itself and believes that only certain entities inter-relate within well defined conceptual frames (called theories). Not everything has the potential to connect to everything else. Entities are discriminated, differentiated, classified and assimilated in worldviews in accordance with the types of connections that they forge with each other.

Moreover, Science believes that it has a set of very effective tools to diagnose, distinguish, observe and describe these relationships. It proves its point by issuing highly accurate predictions based on the relationships discerned through the use of said tools. Science (mostly) claims that these connections are "true" in the sense that they are certain - not probable.

The cycle of formulation, prediction and falsification (or proof) is the core of the human scientific activity. Alleged connections that cannot be captured in these nets of reasoning are cast out either as "hypothetical" or as "false". In other words: Science defines "relations between entities" as "relations between entities which have been established and tested using the scientific apparatus and arsenal of tools". This, admittedly, is a very cyclical argument, as close to tautology as it gets.

Superstition is a much simpler matter: everything is connected to everything in ways unbeknown to us. We can only witness the results of these subterranean currents and deduce the existence of such currents from the observable flotsam. The planets influence our lives, dry coffee sediments contain information about the future, black cats portend disasters, certain dates are propitious, certain numbers are to be avoided. The world is unsafe because it can never be fathomed. But the fact that we - limited as we are - cannot learn about a hidden connection - should not imply that it does not exist.

Science believes in two categories of relationships between entities (physical and abstract alike). The one is the category of direct links - the other that of links through a third entity. In the first case, A and B are seen to be directly related. In the second case, there is no apparent link between A and B, but a third entity, C could well provide such a connection (for instance, if A and B are parts of C or are separately, but concurrently somehow influenced by it).

Each of these two categories is divided to three subcategories: causal relationships, functional relationships and correlative relationship.

A and B will be said to be causally related if A precedes B, B never occurs if A does not precede it and always occurs after A occurs. To the discerning eye, this would seem to be a relationship of correlation ("whenever A happens B happens") and this is true. Causation is subsumed by a the 1.0 correlation relationship category. In other words: it is a private case of the more general case of correlation.

A and B are functionally related if B can be predicted by assuming A but we have no way of establishing the truth value of A. The latter is a postulate or axiom. The time dependent Schr鰀inger Equation is a postulate (cannot be derived, it is only reasonable). Still, it is the dynamic laws underlying wave mechanics, an integral part of quantum mechanics, the most accurate scientific theory that we have. An unproved, non-derivable equation is related functionally to a host of exceedingly precise statements about the real world (observed experimental results).

A and B are correlated if A explains a considerable part of the existence or the nature of B. It is then clear that A and B are related. Evolution has equipped us with highly developed correlation mechanisms because they are efficient in insuring survival. To see a tiger and to associate the awesome sight with a sound is very useful.

Still, we cannot state with any modicum of certainty that we possess all the conceivable tools for the detection, description, analysis and utilization of relations between entities. Put differently: we cannot say that there are no connections that escape the tight nets that we cast in order to capture them. We cannot, for instance, say with any degree of certainty that there are no hyper-structures which would provide new, surprising insights into the interconnectedness of objects in the real world or in our mind. We cannot even say that the epistemological structures with which we were endowed are final or satisfactory. We do not know enough about knowing.

Consider the cases of Non-Aristotelian logic formalisms, Non-Euclidean geometries, Newtonian Mechanics and non classical physical theories (the relativity theories and, more so, quantum mechanics and its various interpretations). All of them revealed to us connections which we could not have imagined prior to their appearance. All of them created new tools for the capture of interconnectivity and inter-relatedness. All of them suggested one kind or the other of mental hyper-structures in which new links between entities (hitherto considered disparate) could be established.

So far, so good for superstitions. Today's superstition could well become tomorrow's Science given the right theoretical developments. The source of the clash lies elsewhere, in the insistence of superstitions upon a causal relation.

The general structure of a superstition is: A is caused by B. The causation propagates through unknown (one or more) mechanisms. These mechanisms are unidentified (empirically) or unidentifiable (in principle). For instance, al the mechanisms of causal propagation which are somehow connected to divine powers can never, in principle, be understood (because the true nature of divinity is sealed to human understanding).

Thus, superstitions incorporate mechanisms of action which are, either, unknown to Science ?or are impossible to know, as far as Science goes. All the "action-at-a-distance" mechanisms are of the latter type (unknowable). Parapsychological mechanisms are more of the first kind (unknown).

The philosophical argument behind superstitions is pretty straightforward and appealing. Perhaps this is the source of their appeal. It goes as follows:

There is nothing that can be thought of that is impossible (in all the Universes);
There is nothing impossible (in all the Universes) that can be thought of;
Everything that can be thought about ?is, therefore, possible (somewhere in the Universes);
Everything that is possible exists (somewhere in the Universes).
If something can be thought of (=is possible) and is not known (=proven or observed) yet - it is most probably due to the shortcomings of Science and not because it does not exist.

Some of these propositions can be easily attacked. For instance: we can think about contradictions and falsehoods but (apart from a form of mental representation) no one will claim that they exist in reality or that they are possible. These statements, though, apply very well to entities, the existence of which has yet to be disproved (=not known as false, or whose truth value is uncertain) and to improbable (though possible) things. It is in these formal logical niches that superstition thrives.

APPENDIX - From "The Cycle of Science"

"There was a time when the newspapers said that only twelve men understood the theory of relativity. I do not believe that there ever was such a time... On the other hand, I think it is safe to say that no one understands quantum mechanics... Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, 'But how can it be like that?', because you will get 'down the drain' into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that."
R. P. Feynman (1967)

"The first processes, therefore, in the effectual studies of the sciences, must be ones of simplification and reduction of the results of previous investigations to a form in which the mind can grasp them."
J. C. Maxwell, On Faraday's lines of force

" ...conventional formulations of quantum theory, and of quantum field theory in particular, are unprofessionally vague and ambiguous. Professional theoretical physicists ought to be able to do better. Bohm has shown us a way."
John S. Bell, Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics

"It would seem that the theory [quantum mechanics] is exclusively concerned about 'results of measurement', and has nothing to say about anything else. What exactly qualifies some physical systems to play the role of 'measurer'? Was the wavefunction of the world waiting to jump for thousands of millions of years until a single-celled living creature appeared? Or did it have to wait a little longer, for some better qualified system ... with a Ph.D.? If the theory is to apply to anything but highly idealized laboratory operations, are we not obliged to admit that more or less 'measurement-like' processes are going on more or less all the time, more or less everywhere. Do we not have jumping then all the time?

The first charge against 'measurement', in the fundamental axioms of quantum mechanics, is that it anchors the shifty split of the world into 'system' and 'apparatus'. A second charge is that the word comes loaded with meaning from everyday life, meaning which is entirely inappropriate in the quantum context. When it is said that something is 'measured' it is difficult not to think of the result as referring to some pre-existing property of the object in question. This is to disregard Bohr's insistence that in quantum phenomena the apparatus as well as the system is essentially involved. If it were not so, how could we understand, for example, that 'measurement' of a component of 'angular momentum' ... in an arbitrarily chosen direction ... yields one of a discrete set of values? When one forgets the role of the apparatus, as the word 'measurement' makes all too likely, one despairs of ordinary logic ... hence 'quantum logic'. When one remembers the role of the apparatus, ordinary logic is just fine.

In other contexts, physicists have been able to take words from ordinary language and use them as technical terms with no great harm done. Take for example the 'strangeness', 'charm', and 'beauty' of elementary particle physics. No one is taken in by this 'baby talk'... Would that it were so with 'measurement'. But in fact the word has had such a damaging effect on the discussion, that I think it should now be banned altogether in quantum mechanics."
J. S. Bell, Against "Measurement"

"Is it not clear from the smallness of the scintillation on the screen that we have to do with a particle? And is it not clear, from the diffraction and interference patterns, that the motion of the particle is directed by a wave? De Broglie showed in detail how the motion of a particle, passing through just one of two holes in screen, could be influenced by waves propagating through both holes. And so influenced that the particle does not go where the waves cancel out, but is attracted to where they co-operate. This idea seems to me so natural and simple, to resolve the wave-particle dilemma in such a clear and ordinary way, that it is a great mystery to me that it was so generally ignored."
J. S. Bell, Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics

"...in physics the only observations we must consider are position observations, if only the positions of instrument pointers. It is a great merit of the de Broglie-Bohm picture to force us to consider this fact. If you make axioms, rather than definitions and theorems, about the "measurement" of anything else, then you commit redundancy and risk inconsistency."
J. S. Bell, Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics

"To outward appearance, the modern world was born of an anti religious movement: man becoming self-sufficient and reason supplanting belief. Our generation and the two that preceded it have heard little of but talk of the conflict between science and faith; indeed it seemed at one moment a foregone conclusion that the former was destined to take the place of the latter... After close on two centuries of passionate struggles, neither science nor faith has succeeded in discrediting its adversary.
On the contrary, it becomes obvious that neither can develop normally without the other. And the reason is simple: the same life animates both. Neither in its impetus nor its achievements can science go to its limits without becoming tinged with mysticism and charged with faith."
Pierre Thierry de Chardin, "The Phenomenon of Man"

I opened this appendix with lengthy quotations of John S. Bell, the main proponent of the Bohemian Mechanics interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (really, an alternative rather than an interpretation). The renowned physicist, David Bohm (in the 50s), basing himself on work done much earlier by de Broglie (the unwilling father of the wave-particle dualism), embedded the Schr鰀inger Equation (SE throughout this article) in a deterministic physical theory which postulated a non-Newtonian motion of particles. This is a fine example of the life cycle of scientific theories.

Witchcraft, Religion, Alchemy and Science succeeded one another and each such transition was characterized by transitional pathologies reminiscent of psychotic disorders. The exceptions are (arguably) medicine and biology. A phenomenology of ossified bodies of knowledge would make a fascinating read. This is the end of the aforementioned life cycle: Growth, Pathology, Ossification.

This article identifies the current Ossification Phase of Science and suggests that it is soon to be succeeded by another discipline. It does so after studying and rejecting other explanations to the current state of science: that human knowledge is limited by its very nature, that the world is inherently incomprehensible, that methods of thought and understanding tend to self-organize to form closed mythic systems and that there is a problem of the language which we employ to make our inquiries of the world describable and communicable.

Kuhn's approach to Scientific Revolutions is but one of a series of approaches to issues of theory and paradigm shifts in scientific thought and its resulting evolution. Scientific theories seem to be subject to a process of natural selection as much as organisms are in nature.

Animals could be construed to be theorems (with a positive truth value) in the logical system "Nature". But species become extinct because nature itself changes (not nature as a set of potentials - but the relevant natural phenomena to which the species are exposed). Could we say the same about scientific theories? Are they being selected and deselected partly due to a changing, shifting backdrop?

Indeed, the whole debate between "realists" and "anti-realists" in the philosophy of Science can be thus settled, by adopting this single premise: that the Universe itself is not a fixture. By contrasting a fixed subject of the study ("The World") with the moving image of Science - anti-realists gained the upper hand.

Arguments such as the under-determination of theories by data and the pessimistic meta-inductions from past falsity (of scientific "knowledge") emphasized the transience and asymptotic nature of the fruits of the scientific endeavor. But all this rests on the implicit assumption that there is some universal, immutable, truth out there (which science strives to approximate). The apparent problem evaporates if we allow both the observer and the observed, the theory and its subject, the background, as well as the fleeting images, to be alterable.

Science develops through reduction of miracles. Laws of nature are formulated. They are assumed to encompass all the (relevant) natural phenomena (that is, phenomena governed by natural forces and within nature). Ex definitio, nothing can exist outside nature - it is all-inclusive and all-pervasive, omnipresent (formerly the attributes of the divine).

Supernatural forces, supernatural intervention - are a contradiction in terms, oxymorons. If it exists - it is natural. That which is supernatural - does not exist. Miracles do not only contravene (or violate) the laws of nature - they are impossible, not only physically, but also logically. That which is logically possible and can be experienced (observed), is physically possible. But, again, we confront the "fixed background" assumption. What if nature itself changes in a way to confound everlasting, ever-truer knowledge? Then, the very shift of nature as a whole, as a system, could be called "supernatural" or "miraculous".

In a small way, this is how science evolves. A law of nature is proposed. An event or occurs or observation made which are not described or predicted by it. It is, by definition, a violation of the law. The laws of nature are modified, or re-written entirely, in order to reflect and encompass this extraordinary event. Hume's distinction between "extraordinary" and "miraculous" events is upheld (the latter being ruled out).

The extraordinary ones can be compared to our previous experience - the miraculous entail some supernatural interference with the normal course of things (a "wonder" in Biblical terms). It is through confronting the extraordinary and eliminating its abnormal nature that science progresses as a miraculous activity. This, of course, is not the view of the likes of David Deutsch (see his book, "The Fabric of Reality").

The last phase of this Life Cycle is Ossification. The discipline degenerates and, following the psychotic phase, it sinks into a paralytic stage which is characterized by the following:

All the practical and technological aspects of the discipline are preserved and continue to be utilized. Gradually the conceptual and theoretical underpinnings vanish or are replaced by the tenets and postulates of a new discipline - but the inventions, processes and practical know-how do not evaporate. They are incorporated into the new discipline and, in time, are erroneously attributed to it. This is a transfer of credit and the attribution of merit and benefits to the legitimate successor of the discipline.

The practitioners of the discipline confine themselves to copying and replicating the various aspects of the discipline, mainly its intellectual property (writings, inventions, other theoretical material). The replication process does not lead to the creation of new knowledge or even to the dissemination of old one. It is a hermetic process, limited to the ever decreasing circle of the initiated. Special institutions are set up to rehash the materials related to the discipline, process them and copy them. These institutions are financed and supported by the State which is always an agent of conservation, preservation and conformity.

Thus, the creative-evolutionary dimension of the discipline freezes over. No new paradigms or revolutions happen. Interpretation and replication of canonical writings become the predominant activity. Formalisms are not subjected to scrutiny and laws assume eternal, immutable, quality.

All the activities of the adherents of the discipline become ritualized. The discipline itself becomes a pillar of the power structures and, as such, is commissioned and condoned by them. Its practitioners synergistically collaborate with them: with the industrial base, the military powerhouse, the political elite, the intellectual cliques in vogue. Institutionalization inevitably leads to the formation of a (mostly bureaucratic) hierarchy. Rituals serve two purposes. The first is to divert attention from subversive, "forbidden" thinking.

This is very much as is the case with obsessive-compulsive disorders in individuals who engage in ritualistic behavior patterns to deflect "wrong" or "corrupt" thoughts. And the second purpose is to cement the power of the "clergy" of the discipline. Rituals are a specialized form of knowledge which can be obtained only through initiation procedures and personal experience. One's status in the hierarchy is not the result of objectively quantifiable variables or even of judgment of merit. It is the result of politics and other power-related interactions. The cases of "Communist Genetics" (Lysenko) versus "Capitalist Genetics" and of the superpower races (space race, arms race) come to mind.

Conformity, dogmatism, doctrines - all lead to enforcement mechanisms which are never subtle. Dissidents are subjected to sanctions: social sanctions and economic sanctions. They can find themselves ex-communicated, harassed, imprisoned, tortured, their works banished or not published, ridiculed and so on.

This is really the triumph of text over the human spirit. The members of the discipline's community forget the original reasons and causes for their scientific pursuits. Why was the discipline developed? What were the original riddles, questions, queries? How did it feel to be curious? Where is the burning fire and the glistening eyes and the feelings of unity with nature that were the prime moving forces behind the discipline? The cold ashes of the conflagration are the texts and their preservation is an expression of longing and desire for things past.

The vacuum left by the absence of positive emotions - is filled by negative ones. The discipline and its disciples become phobic, paranoid, defensive, with a blurred reality test. Devoid of new, attractive content, the discipline resorts to negative motivation by manipulation of negative emotions. People are frightened, threatened, herded, cajoled. The world without the discipline is painted in an apocalyptic palette as ruled by irrationality, disorderly, chaotic, dangerous, even lethally so.

New, emerging disciplines, are presented as heretic, fringe lunacies, inconsistent, reactionary and bound to lead humanity back to some dark ages. This is the inter-disciplinary or inter-paradigm clash. It follows the Psychotic Phase. The old discipline resorts to some transcendental entity (God, Satan, the conscious intelligent observer in the Copenhagen interpretation of the formalism of Quantum Mechanics). In this sense, it is already psychotic and fails its reality test. It develops messianic aspirations and is inspired by a missionary zeal and zest. The fight against new ideas and theories is bloody and ruthless and every possible device is employed.

But the very characteristics of the older nomenclature is in its disfavor. It is closed, based on ritualistic initiation, patronizing. It relies on intimidation. The numbers of the faithful dwindles the more the "church" needs them and the more it resorts to oppressive recruitment tactics. The emerging knowledge wins by historical default and not due to the results of any fierce fight. Even the initiated desert. Their belief unravels when confronted with the truth value, explanatory and predictive powers, and the comprehensiveness of the emerging discipline.

This, indeed, is the main presenting symptom, distinguishing hallmark, of paralytic old disciplines. They deny reality. The are a belief-system, a myth, requiring suspension of judgment, the voluntary limitation of the quest, the agreement to leave swathes of the map in the state of a blank "terra incognita". This reductionism, this avoidance, their replacement by some transcendental authority are the beginning of an end.

Consider physics:

The Universe is a complex, orderly system. If it were an intelligent being, we would be compelled to say that it had "chosen" to preserve form (structure), order and complexity - and to increase them whenever and wherever it can. We can call this a natural inclination or a tendency of the Universe.

This explains why evolution did not stop at the protozoa level. After all, these mono-cellular organisms were (and still are, hundreds of millions of years later) superbly adapted to their environment. It was Bergson who posed the question: why did nature prefer the risk of unstable complexity over predictable and reliable and durable simplicity?

The answer seems to be that the Universe has a predilection (not confined to the biological realm) to increase complexity and order and that this principle takes precedence over "utilitarian" calculations of stability. The battle between the entropic arrow and the negentropic one is more important than any other (in-built) "consideration". This is Time itself and Thermodynamics pitted against Man (as an integral part of the Universe), Order (a systemic, extensive parameter) against Disorder.

In this context, natural selection is no more "blind" or "random" than its subjects. It is discriminating, exercises discretion, encourages structure, complexity and order. The contrast that Bergson stipulated between Natural Selection and 蒷an Vitale is grossly misplaced: Natural Selection IS the vital power itself.

Modern Physics is converging with Philosophy (possibly with the philosophical side of Religion as well) and the convergence is precisely where concepts of Order and disorder emerge. String theories, for instance, come in numerous versions which describe many possible different worlds. Granted, they may all be facets of the same Being (distant echoes of the new versions of the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics).

Still, why do we, intelligent conscious observers, see (=why are we exposed to) only one aspect of the Universe? How is this aspect "selected"? The Universe is constrained in this "selection process" by its own history - but history is not synonymous with the Laws of Nature. The latter determine the former - does the former also determine the latter? In other words: were the Laws of Nature "selected" as well and, if so, how?

The answer seems self evident: the Universe "selected" both the Natural Laws and - as a result - its own history. The selection process was based on the principle of Natural Selection. A filter was applied: whatever increased order, complexity, structure - survived. Indeed, our very survival as a species is still largely dependent upon these things. Our Universe - having survived - must be an optimized Universe.

Only order-increasing Universes do not succumb to entropy and death (the weak hypothesis). It could even be argued (as we do here) that our Universe is the only possible kind of Universe (the semi-strong hypothesis) or even the only Universe (the strong hypothesis). This is the essence of the Anthropic Principle.

By definition, universal rules pervade all the realms of existence. Biological systems must obey the same order-increasing (natural) laws as physical ones and social ones. We are part of the Universe in the sense that we are subject to the same discipline and adhere to the same "religion". We are an inevitable result - not a chance happening.

We are the culmination of orderly processes - not the outcome of random events. The Universe enables us and our world because - and only for as long as - we increase order. That is not to imply that there is an intention to do so on the part of the Universe (or a "higher being" or a "higher power"). There is no conscious or God-like spirit. There is no religious assertion. We only say that a system that has Order as its founding principle will tend to favor order, to breed it, to positively select its proponents and deselect its opponents - and, finally, to give birth to more and more sophisticated weapons in the pro-Order arsenal. We, humans, were such an order-increasing weapon until recently.

These intuitive assertions can be easily converted into a formalism. In Quantum Mechanics, the State Vector can be constrained to collapse to the most Order-enhancing event. If we had a computer the size of the Universe that could infallibly model it - we would have been able to predict which event will increase the order in the Universe overall. No collapse would have been required then and no probabilistic calculations.

It is easy to prove that events will follow a path of maximum order, simply because the world is orderly and getting ever more so. Had this not been the case, evenly statistically scattered event would have led to an increase in entropy (thermodynamic laws are the offspring of statistical mechanics). But this simply does not happen. And it is wrong to think that order increases only in isolated "pockets", in local regions of our universe.

It is increasing everywhere, all the time, on all scales of measurement. Therefore, we are forced to conclude that quantum events are guided by some non-random principle (such as the increase in order). This, exactly, is the case in biology. There is no reason why not to construct a life wavefunction which will always collapse to the most order increasing event. If we construct and apply this wave function to our world - we will probably find ourselves as one of the events after its collapse.

Appendix - Interview granted to Adam Anderson

1. Do you believe that superstitions have affected American culture? And if so, how?

A. In its treatment of nature, Western culture is based on realism and rationalism and purports to be devoid of superstitions. Granted, many Westerners - perhaps the majority - are still into esoteric practices, such as Astrology. But the official culture and its bearers - scientists, for instance - disavow such throwbacks to a darker past.

Today, superstitions are less concerned with the physical Universe and more with human affairs. Political falsities - such as anti-Semitism - supplanted magic and alchemy. Fantastic beliefs permeate the fields of economics, sociology, and psychology, for instance. The effects of progressive taxation, the usefulness of social welfare, the role of the media, the objectivity of science, the mechanism of democracy, and the function of psychotherapy - are six examples of such groundless fables.

Indeed, one oft-neglected aspect of superstitions is their pernicious economic cost. Irrational action carries a price tag. It is impossible to optimize one's economic activity by making the right decisions and then acting on them in a society or culture permeated by the occult. Esotericism skews the proper allocation of scarce resources.

2. Are there any superstitions that exist today that you believe could become facts tomorrow, or that you believe have more fact than fiction hidden in them?

A. Superstitions stem from one of these four premises:

That there is nothing that can be thought of that is impossible (in all possible Universes);
That there is nothing impossible (in all possible Universes) that can be thought of;
That everything that can be thought of ?is, therefore, possible (somewhere in these Universes);
That everything that is possible exists (somewhere in these Universes).
As long as our knowledge is imperfect (asymptotic to the truth), everything is possible. As Arthur Clark, the British scientist and renowned author of science fiction, said: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".

Still, regardless of how "magical" it becomes, positive science is increasingly challenged by the esoteric. The emergence of pseudo-science is the sad outcome of the blurring of contemporary distinctions between physics and metaphysics. Modern science borders on speculation and attempts, to its disadvantage, to tackle questions that once were the exclusive preserve of religion or philosophy. The scientific method is ill-built to cope with such quests and is inferior to the tools developed over centuries by philosophers, theologians, and mystics.

Moreover, scientists often confuse language of representation with meaning and knowledge represented. That a discipline of knowledge uses quantitative methods and the symbol system of mathematics does not make it a science. The phrase "social sciences" is an oxymoron - and it misleads the layman into thinking that science is not that different to literature, religion, astrology, numerology, or other esoteric "systems".

The emergence of "relative", New Age, and politically correct philosophies rendered science merely one option among many. Knowledge, people believe, can be gleaned either directly (mysticism and spirituality) or indirectly (scientific practice). Both paths are equivalent and equipotent. Who is to say that science is superior to other "bodies of wisdom"? Self-interested scientific chauvinism is out - indiscriminate "pluralism" is in.

3. I have found one definition of the word "superstition" that states that it is "a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation." What is your opinion about said definition?

A. It describes what motivates people to adopt superstitions - ignorance and fear of the unknown. Superstitions are, indeed, a "false conception of causation" which inevitably leads to "trust in magic". the only part I disagree with is the trust in chance. Superstitions are organizing principles. They serve as alternatives to other worldviews, such as religion or science. Superstitions seek to replace chance with an "explanation" replete with the power to predict future events and establish chains of causes and effects.

4. Many people believe that superstitions were created to simply teach a lesson, like the old superstition that "the girl that takes the last cookie will be an old maid" was made to teach little girls manners. Do you think that all superstitions derive from some lesson trying to be taught that today's society has simply forgotten or cannot connect to anymore?

A. Jose Ortega y Gasset said (in an unrelated exchange) that all ideas stem from pre-rational beliefs. William James concurred by saying that accepting a truth often requires an act of will which goes beyond facts and into the realm of feelings. Superstitions permeate our world. Some superstitions are intended to convey useful lessons, others form a part of the process of socialization, yet others are abused by various elites to control the masses. But most of them are there to comfort us by proffering "instant" causal explanations and by rendering our Universe more meaningful.

5. Do you believe that superstitions change with the changes in culture?

A. The content of superstitions and the metaphors we use change from culture to culture - but not the underlying shock and awe that yielded them in the first place. Man feels dwarfed in a Cosmos beyond his comprehension. He seeks meaning, direction, safety, and guidance. Superstitions purport to provide all these the easy way. To be superstitious one does not to study or to toil. Superstitions are readily accessible and unequivocal. In troubled times, they are an irresistible proposition.

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The Basics of Western Astrology Explained

2011-10-05T06:19:00.000-07:00

Introduction:

This article covers the basics of Astrology and how they are inter-related. Astrology is defined as 'the art or practice of determining the supposed influences of the planets and their motions on human affairs and human disposition'. From this practice a horoscope can be produced - a diagram (or chart) of the relative positions of planets and signs of the Zodiac at a specific time, usually the time of birth. A forecast can then be produced.

The Zodiac:

Western Astrology originated way back, around 500 BC, with a concept called the Zodiac being developed. This comprised of an imaginary sphere surrounding the earth, which followed the path of the Sun through the constellations during the year. The Zodiac was split into twelve sections, each named after the specific constellation noted in that area.

Elements:

Many ancient philosophies used a set of classical elements to explain the way nature behaved. Each sign was connected to one of the classical elements (fire, earth, air, or water) and was also related to a region of focus; social, personal or universal.

* Water signs are related to growth processes, identification and emotion. In tandem with the other elements, water feels that fire will make it boil, air will evaporate it, but earth will shape and channel it.

* Fire signs are related to action, passion, and energy. In tandem with the other elements, fire feels that earth will smother it, water will drown it, but air will fan and enliven it.

* Air signs are related to thought, perspective and communication. In tandem with the other elements, air feels that water will obscure it, earth will suffocate it, but fire will inspire and uplift it.

* Earth signs are related to sensation, stability, and practicality. In tandem with the other elements, earth feels that air will dry it, fire will dry it, but water will refresh and nourish it.

Modalities:

Each sign is connected to one of three modalities; cardinal (sometimes referred to as movable), fixed, and mutable.

There are four quadrants following the order of the zodiacal signs, with three signs in each. Each quadrant describes a season, beginning with a cardinal sign, continuing to a fixed sign, and ending with a mutable sign.

Modalities and Related Zodiac Signs:

* Mutable signs are related to adaptability, resourcefulness and holism. They are Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius and Pisces.
* Fixed signs are related to determination, focus and individuality. They are Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius.
* Cardinal signs are related to creativity and initiation. They are Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn.

Summary of Zodiac Sign Characteristics:

* Aries (cardinal, fire, personal): defensive, energetic, head down, assertive, impulsive.
* Taurus (fixed, earth, personal): patient, indulgent, resourceful, thorough, devoted.
* Gemini (mutable, air, personal): quick, logical, inquisitive.
* Cancer (cardinal, water, personal): clinging, protective, sensitive.
* Leo (fixed, fire, social): theatrical, generous, proud.
* Virgo (mutable, earth, social): critically, practical, efficient.
* Libra (cardinal, air, social): lazy, co-operative, fair.
* Scorpio (fixed, water, social): anxious, passionate, sensitive.
* Sagittarius (mutable, fire, universal): careless, free, straightforward.
* Capricorn (cardinal, earth, universal): suspicious, prudent, cautious.
* Aquarius (fixed, air, universal): detached, democratic, unconventional.
* Pisces (mutable, water, universal): distracted, imaginative, sensitive.

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The Idea of God is not Henceforth Relevant

2011-10-05T01:35:00.000-07:00

Well educated, intellectual people, especially scientists at all times demonstrate considerably smaller adherence to religiosity than others. However, there are still believers of the idea of the God in science. If we exclude from their number those who feel a painful requirement for external protection and support by virtue of their poor living circumstances, there are those who come to idea of the God as a result of amazement at a world that has many unsolved problems. The surprising diversification of subjects and entities can be scientifically formulated in principle as it can sustain the quasi-stable condition and demonstrates development.

Common sense suggests, that for an explanation of the observable diversification in life, it is necessary to admit that each separate subject, each organism, each social unit, and even each computer program should contain a special internal causative engine, a local determinism, which maintains an autonomous internal life in it.

The conventional concept of determinism does not suppose the existence of such sources. This represents a scandalous weakness in the concept. Not finding the required causative source within the framework of philosophy, people are compelled to address the always-available, exotic, exciting fantasies of the irrational sources that are available in religion and mysticism.

Today the situation can be considerably rectified. The recently published concept of Ring Determinism identifies the required internal causative source by way of a closed plot of the customary causal chain. This is a self-contained circuit which, it turns out, is contained in the entrails of each separate natural formation. This circuit is just that ontological base in which each separate natural formation finds and displays its exclusive individuality and asserts itself in the capacity of 揷ausa sui ??the cause of itself.

Internal local causative action, continuously circulating inside a separate body, is transmitted from element to element. It ensures its systemic, synergetic wholeness in the operation of its elements and subsystems in the phenomena of 揺mergence? special internal policy, resistance to external actions, aggression directed externally, egotism, egocentricity, self-preservation, self-organization and finally, self-development.

One of the conclusions of ring determinism is, that under the supervisory control of the internal cause continuously circulating in a body, and under the continuous effects of external factors, there is the miracle of self-development. This results in an observable diversification of surprising properties of subjects, organisms, social units, human products and other things.

The local causative circuit can randomly or by design, become closed. Then finding an ability towards long-lived quasi-stable self-maintenance, self-resumption, or, in the case of dynamically developing systems, the determining vortex, it becomes the high-power engine which creates, saves and induces a flock of living and nonliving natural formations in development.

Educated people can now sigh with relief since a rather weighty rational argument against the idea of creationism has appeared and the necessity to appeal to irrational theories has vanished.

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Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life

2011-10-04T21:45:00.000-07:00

I was always somebody who felt quite sorry for myself, what I had not got compared to my friends, how much of a struggle my life seemed to be compared to others. I was caught up in a web of negativity and needed someone or something to help me to escape.

During an afternoon at work one day, aged around twenty one, a colleague I was working with started to talk to me. What he said was quite upsetting and disturbing, however would have a profound effect on my future. He said to me:

"Your quite a depressive person, aren't you?"

"Am I?"

I said in a shocked voice as I believed I was no different to anybody else. He continued:

"Yes you are. You very rarely smile, you are negative about most issues and you always seem to be carrying the world on your shoulders".

This man was aged around fifty three and continued:

"I used to be like you and then I was given some advice, of which I am now going to relay to you. When you feel down, depressed or sorry for yourself, read the newspapers or watch the news on the television. You may then realise that you are in fact one of the lucky ones."

I listened and thought about what he had said. I had never been a big reader or watcher of the news, but decided to start. The advice was totally correct, the news from around the world and even my own country was quite shocking. I realised that the worries I had were actually quite trivial and that I needed to cherish everyday and start to look on the bright side of life.

Stephen Hill

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Religion and Science

2011-10-04T18:40:00.000-07:00

There are many kinds of narratives and organizing principles. Science is driven by evidence gathered in experiments, and by the falsification of extant theories and their replacement with newer, asymptotically truer, ones. Other systems - religion, nationalism, paranoid ideation, or art - are based on personal experiences (faith, inspiration, paranoia, etc.).

Experiential narratives can and do interact with evidential narratives and vice versa.

For instance: belief in God inspires some scientists who regard science as a method to "peek at God's cards" and to get closer to Him. Another example: the pursuit of scientific endeavors enhances one's national pride and is motivated by it. Science is often corrupted in order to support nationalistic and racist claims.

The basic units of all narratives are known by their effects on the environment. God, in this sense, is no different from electrons, quarks, and black holes. All four constructs cannot be directly observed, but the fact of their existence is derived from their effects.

Granted, God's effects are discernible only in the social and psychological (or psychopathological) realms. But this observed constraint doesn't render Him less "real". The hypothesized existence of God parsimoniously explains a myriad ostensibly unrelated phenomena and, therefore, conforms to the rules governing the formulation of scientific theories.

The locus of God's hypothesized existence is, clearly and exclusively, in the minds of believers. But this again does not make Him less real. The contents of our minds are as real as anything "out there". Actually, the very distinction between epistemology and ontology is blurred.

But is God's existence "true" - or is He just a figment of our neediness and imagination?

Truth is the measure of the ability of our models to describe phenomena and predict them. God's existence (in people's minds) succeeds to do both. For instance, assuming that God exists allows us to predict many of the behaviors of people who profess to believe in Him. The existence of God is, therefore, undoubtedly true (in this formal and strict sense).

But does God exist outside people's minds? Is He an objective entity, independent of what people may or may not think about Him? After all, if all sentient beings were to perish in a horrible calamity, the Sun would still be there, revolving as it has done from time immemorial.

If all sentient beings were to perish in a horrible calamity, would God still exist? If all sentient beings, including all humans, stop believing that there is God - would He survive this renunciation? Does God "out there" inspire the belief in God in religious folks' minds?

Known things are independent of the existence of observers (although the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Mechanics disputes this). Believed things are dependent on the existence of believers.

We know that the Sun exists. We don't know that God exists. We believe that God exists - but we don't and cannot know it, in the scientific sense of the word.

We can design experiments to falsify (prove wrong) the existence of electrons, quarks, and black holes (and, thus, if all these experiments fail, prove that electrons, quarks, and black holes exist). We can also design experiments to prove that electrons, quarks, and black holes exist.

But we cannot design even one experiment to falsify the existence of a God who is outside the minds of believers (and, thus, if the experiment fails, prove that God exists "out there"). Additionally, we cannot design even one experiment to prove that God exists outside the minds of believers.

What about the "argument from design"? The universe is so complex and diverse that surely it entails the existence of a supreme intelligence, the world's designer and creator, known by some as "God". On the other hand, the world's richness and variety can be fully accounted for using modern scientific theories such as evolution and the big bang. There is no need to introduce God into the equations.

Still, it is possible that God is responsible for it all. The problem is that we cannot design even one experiment to falsify this theory, that God created the Universe (and, thus, if the experiment fails, prove that God is, indeed, the world's originator). Additionally, we cannot design even one experiment to prove that God created the world.

We can, however, design numerous experiments to falsify the scientific theories that explain the creation of the Universe (and, thus, if these experiments fail, lend these theories substantial support). We can also design experiments to prove the scientific theories that explain the creation of the Universe.

It does not mean that these theories are absolutely true and immutable. They are not. Our current scientific theories are partly true and are bound to change with new knowledge gained by experimentation. Our current scientific theories will be replaced by newer, truer theories. But any and all future scientific theories will be falsifiable and testable.

Knowledge and belief are like oil and water. They don't mix. Knowledge doesn't lead to belief and belief does not yield knowledge. Belief can yield conviction or strongly-felt opinions. But belief cannot result in knowledge.

Still, both known things and believed things exist. The former exist "out there" and the latter "in our minds" and only there. But they are no less real for that.

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Words To Live By?

2011-10-04T14:15:00.000-07:00

Watching the news the other day, it occurred to me that people who have "words to live by" often begin to attack and even kill others. I thought back to my own angry youth, when I could easily use words to justify violent thoughts which might have become violent actions. Words are tools, and yet it seems that they can be more dangerous than gunpowder.

Imagine two men facing each other, pointing past one another. One is pointing at a tornado that is coming, and the other at a raging fire headed towards them. Each sees their own truth and is angry at the sight of the other's hand. Each feels that the other's hand is "wrong." This may seem silly, but replace the tornado and fire with any modern issues, and the hands with words, and this scene describes how we often try to communicate.

We point past each other with our words, arguing as though we are looking at the same facts and experiences. We want to prove our words are the right ones, instead of learning to look at what the other's words are pointing at. Words are seductive, and for all their undeniable usefulness, they also can lead us away from understanding when we focus on them, when we make them more important than the truth they are meant to point at.

There Are No Words To Live By

This isn't just about communication with others. We focus on, and get trapped in a net of words that we use to explain the world to ourselves. We call things "right" or "wrong" for example, according to how they compare to our "definitions." Unlike mathematics, though, word formulas and definitions can never be so precise. They cannot encompass the whole truth of reality. For example, with the least effort, you can create a circumstance where "stealing" would be right, and "helping" someone wrong.

This isn't an argument against using language or logic. It is just that both only go so far. Like a car that takes you across the country or world, they are useful, but like a car, they are only useful in certain ways, and you have to get out of them when you arrive at your various destinations. Taking a car to the lake isn't a problem, but taking it into the lake is. This is what we do when our words and logic take us to dangerous situations.

Can having words to live by be dangerous, though? Absolutely. I once heard an otherwise compassionate person say he was against animal cruelty laws because he couldn't find a logical and defensible set of words to defend them. If he saw a new machine, would he refuse to believe it existed until he could explain it and describe it? Reality, and the reality of right and wrong exist outside of words - they are not the words themselves.

I watched a man say on the evening news that we have the right to drop a nuclear bomb on Iraq, and that we should. As he explained why, you could see that whatever compassionate impulses he had, they were over-ruled by his total allegiance to his words, logic, and where these take him. It never occurred to him that maybe there is truth outside of his words and logic.

It's great to have guidelines, like "don't lie," or "we have the right to defend ourselves." It is even better to remember that these rules will someday fail us, and we will have to make new ones. Words are just tools. There are words to die by, but there are no words to live by.

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On Being Human

2011-10-04T09:37:00.000-07:00

Are we human because of unique traits and attributes not shared with either animal or machine? The definition of "human" is circular: we are human by virtue of the properties that make us human (i.e., distinct from animal and machine). It is a definition by negation: that which separates us from animal and machine is our "human-ness".

We are human because we are not animal, nor machine. But such thinking has been rendered progressively less tenable by the advent of evolutionary and neo-evolutionary theories which postulate a continuum in nature between animals and Man.

Our uniqueness is partly quantitative and partly qualitative. Many animals are capable of cognitively manipulating symbols and using tools. Few are as adept at it as we are. These are easily quantifiable differences - two of many.

Qualitative differences are a lot more difficult to substantiate. In the absence of privileged access to the animal mind, we cannot and don't know if animals feel guilt, for instance. Do animals love? Do they have a concept of sin? What about object permanence, meaning, reasoning, self-awareness, critical thinking? Individuality? Emotions? Empathy? Is artificial intelligence (AI) an oxymoron? A machine that passes the Turing Test may well be described as "human". But is it really? And if it is not - why isn't it?

Literature is full of stories of monsters - Frankenstein, the Golem - and androids or anthropoids. Their behaviour is more "humane" than the humans around them. This, perhaps, is what really sets humans apart: their behavioural unpredictability. It is yielded by the interaction between Mankind's underlying immutable genetically-determined nature - and Man's kaleidoscopically changing environments.

The Constructivists even claim that Human Nature is a mere cultural artefact. Sociobiologists, on the other hand, are determinists. They believe that human nature - being the inevitable and inexorable outcome of our bestial ancestry - cannot be the subject of moral judgment.

An improved Turing Test would look for baffling and erratic patterns of misbehaviour to identify humans. Pico della Mirandola wrote in "Oration on the Dignity of Man" that Man was born without a form and can mould and transform - actually, create - himself at will. Existence precedes essence, said the Existentialists centuries later.

The one defining human characteristic may be our awareness of our mortality. The automatically triggered, "fight or flight", battle for survival is common to all living things (and to appropriately programmed machines). Not so the catalytic effects of imminent death. These are uniquely human. The appreciation of the fleeting translates into aesthetics, the uniqueness of our ephemeral life breeds morality, and the scarcity of time gives rise to ambition and creativity.

In an infinite life, everything materializes at one time or another, so the concept of choice is spurious. The realization of our finiteness forces us to choose among alternatives. This act of selection is predicated upon the existence of "free will". Animals and machines are thought to be devoid of choice, slaves to their genetic or human programming.

Yet, all these answers to the question: "What does it mean to be human" - are lacking.

The set of attributes we designate as human is subject to profound alteration. Drugs, neuroscience, introspection, and experience all cause irreversible changes in these traits and characteristics. The accumulation of these changes can lead, in principle, to the emergence of new properties, or to the abolition of old ones.

Animals and machines are not supposed to possess free will or exercise it. What, then, about fusions of machines and humans (bionics)? At which point does a human turn into a machine? And why should we assume that free will ceases to exist at that - rather arbitrary - point?

Introspection - the ability to construct self-referential and recursive models of the world - is supposed to be a uniquely human quality. What about introspective machines? Surely, say the critics, such machines are PROGRAMMED to introspect, as opposed to humans. To qualify as introspection, it must be WILLED, they continue. Yet, if introspection is willed - WHO wills it? Self-willed introspection leads to infinite regression and formal logical paradoxes.

Moreover, the notion - if not the formal concept - of "human" rests on many hidden assumptions and conventions.

Political correctness notwithstanding - why presume that men and women (or different races) are identically human? Aristotle thought they were not. A lot separates males from females - genetically (both genotype and phenotype) and environmentally (culturally). What is common to these two sub-species that makes them both "human"?

Can we conceive of a human without body (i.e., a Platonian Form, or soul)? Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas think not. A soul has no existence separate from the body. A machine-supported energy field with mental states similar to ours today - would it be considered human? What about someone in a state of coma - is he or she (or it) fully human?

Is a new born baby human - or, at least, fully human - and, if so, in which sense? What about a future human race - whose features would be unrecognizable to us? Machine-based intelligence - would it be thought of as human? If yes, when would it be considered human?

In all these deliberations, we may be confusing "human" with "person". The former is a private case of the latter. Locke's person is a moral agent, a being responsible for its actions. It is constituted by the continuity of its mental states accessible to introspection.

Locke's is a functional definition. It readily accommodates non-human persons (machines, energy matrices) if the functional conditions are satisfied. Thus, an android which meets the prescribed requirements is more human than a brain dead person.

Descartes' objection that one cannot specify conditions of singularity and identity over time for disembodied souls is right only if we assume that such "souls" possess no energy. A bodiless intelligent energy matrix which maintains its form and identity over time is conceivable. Certain AI and genetic software programs already do it.

Strawson is Cartesian and Kantian in his definition of a "person" as a "primitive". Both the corporeal predicates and those pertaining to mental states apply equally, simultaneously, and inseparably to all the individuals of that type of entity. Human beings are one such entity. Some, like Wiggins, limit the list of possible persons to animals - but this is far from rigorously necessary and is unduly restrictive.

The truth is probably in a synthesis:

A person is any type of fundamental and irreducible entity whose typical physical individuals (i.e., members) are capable of continuously experiencing a range of states of consciousness and permanently having a list of psychological attributes.

This definition allows for non-animal persons and recognizes the personhood of a brain damaged human ("capable of experiencing"). It also incorporates Locke's view of humans as possessing an ontological status similar to "clubs" or "nations" - their personal identity consists of a variety of interconnected psychological continuities.

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The Secret is in Your Mind - Learn the Fitness Mindset with These Five Simple Steps

2011-10-04T07:40:00.000-07:00

I met her at a networking group early one morning. Lacy (name changed for privacy reasons) was in her 40s and had a lot going for her. She was intelligent, well spoken, and confident in her ability to run her own Law Firm as an attorney. Lacy was able to enjoy many things in life that others whom believed themselves to "less fortunate" did not think they could enjoy. However, there was one big issue Lacy struggles with. It is an issue that you may recognize in another person, or even in yourself. Body image and fitness.

It was no secret that Lacy was a woman of large bone structure; something genetic that she has absolutely no control over whatsoever. It was also no secret that Lacy tried just about every trick and diet in the book to lose weight and get into shape. In fact, Lacy was bold enough to announce to the entire networking group of over 30 people her ambitions to fit into a sexy lingerie outfit for her husband and feel like a word I better not mention in this article (but I'm sure you have a good imagination).

Being a fitness professional myself, Lacy and myself were bound to be a magical match made in fitness and diet bliss, or one may have thought. After all, my track record is very good, and over the years I have been able to guide many people into discovering how to stay fit, so helping Lacy make this discovery would come naturally right?

Actually not. I worked with Lacy for a couple of months and after that Lacy decided the low carb diet she was insistent on sticking to was not working, and she was going to go off on her own program again. Think this is uncommon? Think again, Lacy was doing what many people do when it comes to health and fitness.

As previously mentioned I have helped many people discover how they can live the fitness lifestyle. However, there is another side to the story. There have been more people that I have crossed paths with in a professional manor that have not been able to maintain the fitness lifestyle. For years I wondered how and why this happens. What causes a person to invest so much time, thought, and effort into the idea of getting into shape only to succumb to disappointment and end up exactly opposite of where they wanted to be?

I eventually discovered it's all in the mind. Lacy was the way she was because of the way she thought about fitness and nutrition in relation to herself. In her career Lacy obviously demonstrated the characteristics of successful thinking. In her idea of diet and fitness Lacy demonstrated the opposite.

You may be wondering how does one swing the thinking pendulum from fitness failure to fitness success and make it stay to fitness success?

If "one" is willing to change some basic fundamentals in thought the process can be happen with great ease and simplicity. Outlined below are five things you can do to adopt the fitness mindset and easily be as fit as you decide to be;

1. Do NOT set goals for yourself. When you set a goal you create an expectation that is formulated from a desire. Very often people will set a goal that they do not believe in their hearts they can achieve, but it would be nice. There are many small things that must be done in order for a big "goal" to materialize. Additionally, not accomplishing a goal often leads to feelings of disappointment, failure; resentments and the end of the New Year's resolution to be in shape. Instead of definitive goal setting you can:

2. Decide to move the direction of fitness and wellness:

There are many ways to exercise, with none being "the ultimate workout" or supreme to the rest. Selecting an activity that you can decide to enjoy is a key element to lasting exercise success. Make the decision to eat foods than help you feel well, not frenzied. If something is called a die-t you may be better off passing and selecting a different way of eating. It is relatively common knowledge at this point that low carb is not the most effective choice in weight loss. Do you homework about nutrition and:

3. Let go of the habits that are not working, including thinking!

If you have decided to want to change something you are going to have to do something different than what you have been doing to get you to this point. Assess the way you think about yourself. If you think of yourself as not being able to stick to a fitness program, or someone who is constantly struggling to get in shape decide to think different thoughts. You can do this by:

4. Asking yourself a series of questions:

If being in shape is what you want; hold that question in mind and ask yourself what would it take to do that? By going inside and looking to your own higher consciousness for answers there is no limit as to what you can discover. This process works best when you make the decision to take time for yourself on a daily basis to inquire inward. When you make a regular practice of inquiring inward you will discover many things. To materialize and experience them you must:

5. Take Action!

What you discover by looking inward you can materialize through your actions. Through a series of small actions repeated on a regular basis you can materialize and experience a big change.

You have the ability to make the coming year your personal best starting with the moment or right now. When your right now is good, things that you enjoy can naturally happen without even having to make a whole lot of effort. It all starts in your mind!

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A Brief History of Creation

2011-10-04T05:05:00.000-07:00

What is the loop of Creation? How is there something from nothing?

In spite of the fact that it is impossible to prove that anything exists beyond one抯 perception since any such proof would involve one抯 perception (I observed it, I heard it, I thought about it, I calculated it, and etc.), science deals with a so-called objective reality 搊ut there,?beyond one抯 perception professing to describe Nature objectively (as if there was a Nature or reality external to one抯 perception). The shocking impact of Matrix was precisely the valid possibility that what we believed to be reality was but our perception; however, this was presented through showing a real reality wherein the perceived reality was a computer simulation. Many who toy with the idea that perhaps, indeed, we are computer simulations, deviate towards questions, such as, who could create such software and what kind of hardware would be needed for such a feat. Although such questions assume that reality is our perception, they also axiomatically presuppose the existence of an objective deterministic world 搊ut there?that nevertheless must be responsible for how we perceive our reality. This is a major mistake emphasizing technology and algorithms instead of trying to discover the nature of reality and the structure of creation. As will be shown in the following, the required paradigm shift from 損erception is our reality fixed within an objective world,?to 損erception is reality without the need of an objective world 憃ut there,挃 is provided by a dynamic logical structure. The Holophanic loop logic is responsible for a consistent and complete worldview that not only describes, but also creates whatever can be perceived or experienced.

Stating that it is impossible to prove the existence of anything beyond one抯 perception is not saying there is nothing beyond perception, only that if there is anything, then whatever that is, is indefinite. It could be argued that the existence of physical laws, the universal perception that the apple falls to the ground is proof of an objective reality. However, this universal agreement is also our perception. It could be argued that if we cannot decide what to perceive, and everybody perceives the same physical reality, then there must be some lawfulness that dictates how we perceive and therefore, this lawfulness could be external to our perception. However, this lawfulness, as we shall see later on, is the precise lawfulness that creates perception, the process of definition, which is not external to perception (this process creates the perceived and the perceiver, which then gives meaning to this process ?a loop ?but about that, later). It could be argued, that hitting our knee on the table ?whether we believe in the table or not ?will hurt. The table is external to our body, but not to our perception. What then is perception? It is relating, a process of definition, defining and thereby rendering meaningful what has been perceived.

What then is this process of definition? It is creating borders within which one抯 perception gains meaning. The word 揹efinition?comes from the Latin de finire, meaning, making finite or limited. In Hebrew, definition is HAGDARA (הגדרה), meaning, to border. Any definition necessarily implies what the definition is not, or stated differently, to have meaning, whatever is defined explicitly includes the meaning by implicitly excluding everything else. Consequently, to define means to place the defined object within borders that by default create something beyond the borders of the definition. What is this something beyond the defined? The implicitly excluded everything else, or in other words, the indefinite. The paramount importance of incorporating the indefinite within a consistent logical structure cannot be overemphasized. The indefinite itself is a paradox, and incorporating it within the Holophanic logical structure engenders the loop of Creation where the dynamic structure of paradoxes is both the creative force of existence, and also the proof of the necessity of existence.

To better grasp the impetus of Creation, let抯 look at the indefinite and paradoxes. What does 搃ndefinite?mean? Anything as long as it is not specified (not defined); anything that appears both within and beyond the borders of the definition and thereby rendering the border superfluous, which means, no border, no definition. If nevertheless we would attempt to define the notion 搃ndefinite,?then that抯 a paradox because if we succeed, then it is defined, which contradicts its meaning ?its indefiniteness ?and the word 搃ndefinite?means that it cannot be defined. This is an example of a paradox, that in essence means, if it is what it is, then it is not what it is, yet if it is not what it is, then it is what it is. A paradox is a creature that consists of a structure (how it is defined, the dynamic process on its way to stabilization) that contradicts its significance (what it is, the stabilized entity). What characterizes a paradox is the motion between its structure and significance, where the structure implies that its significance contradicts its structure, and vice versa.

Another example of a paradox would be 搘holeness.?Wholeness (totality, infinite, boundless) can only be wholeness if we can find a way to define it so that it includes everything and there is nothing beyond it. However, if we define wholeness, then to have meaning, it must be bordered within the walls of the definition, which implies that there is something beyond this border, in which case it is not wholeness. Or in more formal language, wholeness is only wholeness if it is not wholeness, which is an inconsistency. If we are satisfied with that, then we have completed the definition of wholeness. However, if we try to include the beyond created by our earlier definition within the borders of our next attempt at defining wholeness, then we gain a new definition of wholeness, which by the sheer structure of the process of defining creates a new beyond. In this case, the process of defining wholeness will be consistent but incomplete, and wholeness will remain indefinite.

Contemplating the paradox of Creation, the ancient Egyptian myth of Creation springs to mind, the myth of the self-creating god, Amun (or Amon). Amun masturbated and swallowed his semen, after which he spit it out in the form of a ball, thereby impregnating his mother, the sky. And only then, was he born. Thus Amun was his own father. Those pious who discovered the illustrated version of this myth in Karnak covered up the erect phallus of Amun, and with it, this story of Creation was laid into obscurity. The Holophanic model of Creation could regard this Egyptian myth as Amun retromorphously creating himself. I have coined the word retromorphous to mean, defining in retrospect, turning non-being into the potential of whatever the observation is made from, or in other words, creating the past from the present, creating the source from its outcome, which is the basis of complexity in the context of the loop logic. That is, only after Amun was born can he give meaning to his mother, the potential from which he emanated and to the process that created him (as represented by masturbation and incest) whereby he was born. Of course, neither the sky nor the masturbating Amun have meaning until Creation takes place de facto and Amun emerges. I find this an enticing illustration of the basic paradox of existence.

So how can there be something from nothing? What is 搉othing??Nothing is what didn抰 turn into the potential of something. If there was something from nothing, then that nothing would have turned into the potential of something, because when we ask, how is there something from nothing, we ask this question from something, when something already exists. If we take a deeper look at 搉othing,?we抣l discover that 搉othing?is a paradox. Any definition is something, so if we defined 搉othing,?then it would become something, which contradicts its essence of being 搉othing.?Another way of looking at 搉othing?would be by means of it being something that is meaningless. That is, 搉othing?could be something that does not relate and that no thing or no one relates to. That is, if there was something totally alone in the universe, then that would be nothing, but it would be meaningless. If such existed, its existence would be external to our perception, and as such, this 搉othing?would be indefinite.

We said that the indefinite could be anything, as long as it is not specified (not defined). However, if we nevertheless tried to define 搉othing?(the indefinite), what would we get then? Since 搉othing?is non-definable, it is transparent as the object of our inquiry. So when we attempt to define it, all we have is what we put into it, which is the process of definition. 揘othing?stayed nothing, we didn抰 define it, only made the process of definition explicit. 揘othing?gains meaning when we fail to define it; but having tried, we are left with a bonus, a something, which is our process of defining 搉othing.?Creation of something from nothing is not a function of defining something, but a function of attempting to define 搉othing.?And then, if that process of definition ?which already is an existence ?looks back at its origins, if this process of defining investigates into its own genesis, then what does it see? It sees itself. It sees the process of definition ?self-reference.

If there is nothing external to perception, then this process of definition is the overall wholeness, the creator of meaning when it can relate to itself. However, to have meaning, the process of definition has to be defined; this definition would be a self-referential quasi-infinite and continuous process of establishing borders that create the indefinite beyond that establishes borders creating the indefinite beyond that establishes borders?which means, wholeness would continuously and forever fail to define itself while succeeding to define something ?anything but itself.

Of course, both the totally defined and the totally indefinite are idealized notions that would be inconsistent with the Holophanic loop logic, nor can they be found in nature. The totally indefinite would be the total meaningless nothing, the kind of non-being that cannot be fathomed because if we would think about it, it would already be something. On the other hand, there can be no total definition either. I have used the term uncertainty of sameness to describe the logical impossibility of total definition. A defined entity can be said to have reached sameness ?it is the same as itself ?which means that it is, it exists as something definite, no matter which parameters defined it. However, no sooner does our object achieve sameness than the uncertainty of sameness raises its ugly head. Could it have been defined differently? Yes, of course. Could it have additional parameters? Yes, of course. Could it have been defined more precisely? Yes, of course. This uncertainty of sameness is the indefinite included in the definition, which is the result of including the tools of definition in the definition. Since 慳?/i> can only be defined as 慳?/i> with meaning if it implies 憂ot-a?/i> (the indefinite beyond the borders of the definition), and since 慳?/i> can only have meaning as 慳?/i> because it is different from everything else (the everything else is the indefinite beyond the borders, which actually gives meaning to 慳?/i>), the meaning of 慳?/i> depends on 憂ot-a.?/i>

When the meaning of something depends on the indefinite, on what our defined object is not, then this indefinite is necessarily included in the process of definition. This logical implication that perception of meaning is only possible if and only if the indefinite is included within the perception is the reason why the 19th century dream of a consistent and complete axiomatic system with only well defined (explicit) empty signs had to fail (see more about that in my article, The Loop Logic). In spite of the fact that logic is the fundament of algorithms and computer science, it had neither the aspiration nor the ability to be connected to the real world precisely because its propositions were so anemic regarding meaning. In the effort to exclude any hint of the indefinite, logical inference was confined to a binary type of world of true and false and lacking any correlation with life and experiencing. However, including the indefinite in the process of definition not only makes the loop logic the fundament of existence, but determines the necessity of existence. With the birth of Holophany, Heidegger抯 question, 揥hy is there anything at all, rather than nothing??/i> becomes irrelevant. When existence is relations, and relating is the act of perceiving, and perceiving is the process of definition, then existence is the overall lawfulness, the isomorphous lawfulness of the process of definition ?the loop of Creation. What is being perceived, what is being stabilized, which significance is brought to the foreground from the amorphous background of the indefinite, depends on the non-linear rules of complex interactions. Thus the loop logic emphasizes the creation of essents rather than their interactions.

Is there a lawfulness responsible for any and every existence? An electron and a dog are very different creatures; so what invisible lawfulness is responsible for the existence of both? What kind of lawfulness would fulfill such demands? The answer is, isomorphism ?the same logical inner structure in entirely different representations. Whether an electron, a dog or the weather, each could be a different realization of the same inner logical structure. Creation of anything is the creation of meaning, which is an act of definition. The act of definition attempting to define itself is consciousness. So consciousness, or the soul if you wish, is not some invisible copy of our body carrying our identity, but the lawfulness of Creation expressed as our individual qualitative essence. Of course, it has been endlessly stated that we are God, that we are parts of God, and similar phrases. This is true, but true in the sense that God is the lawfulness that unfolds Creation, and this lawfulness is inherent in all creation including the creatures therein. It could be argued, that a soul, a person is more than mere definitions and intellect. If this logic is the logic of anything and everything, then it should be able to delineate the logical structure of experience as well. Indeed.

Anything that has meaning has to be defined, which places it somewhere on the scale between the continuous and the discrete, between the indefinite and the definite. The indefinite, continuous, infinite tends in the direction of the meaningless, whereas the meaningful is at best imprecise. Experience is the process of attempting to define the indefinite. When we try to capture an experience in a description, we are actually defining our attempt at defining the indefinite. The experience is continuous whereas its description, the definition is discrete. Just as we can never define wholeness, we can never define experience. Any description, any definition, is by nature discrete, whereas the net experience is continuous. So when we have an experience or perception and we become aware of having that experience, then we give it meaning by defining what it is. By doing this we create a discrete replica of the experience, yet the experience remains continuous and non-definable, non-discretizable. Experience is connected to learning. The person encounters something new. How do we know that something is new? Because it is inconsistent with our system. So when we interact with it, we have to integrate it, to assimilate it into our system. If we met something that was not new to the system, then our system would recognize it as part of itself. When that recognition does not occur, the system is interacting with something new. That is the impact. The system adjusts to include the new ?that is the change. One抯 selfhood is the path of changes following one抯 experiences.

Our knowledge of the experience ?whatever it might be that we experience ?makes it exist for us. We could say, one only experiences when one is aware of experiencing. How do we know that we are aware of experiencing something? By experiencing it, we experience the awareness of experiencing. In this sense, experience and awareness of the experience, experiencing the awareness of the experience, being aware of experiencing the awareness of the experience, etc. is an infinitely continuous chain, which is what defines what experience is (not the interpretation of a specific experience, but experience in its general sense). And that抯 the definition of experience: an infinite loop of the process of becoming aware.

When 搉othing?is the limit of both the totally indefinite and the totally defined, then that抯 like a circle of going from something to nothing to something to nothing, etc. The 慻oing?here means perception. 揘othing?is only a notion that has meaning if it has been perceived, in fact, a paradox. If it really is 搉othing,?then it cannot be defined, and hence, it has no meaning. Yet if I relate to it, then it is something. So whenever I relate to 搉othing,?whenever I say, Creation of something from nothing, that 搉othing?has meaning for me, and hence, it is significance ?it is something just like any other something. That is, the structure of 搉othing?is the same structure as that of something. Essentially, something from nothing is formation, not Creation, since nothing is also something. Then what is Creation? Creation is rather the creation of nothing from something, because Creation is the process of definition, and when we define, we create the indefinite beyond the definition, which at its limit is nothing, and only then can we have something from nothing?Oh yes, the loop. A true loop is only such if it contains its own source. If nothing can be proven to exist external to perception, then logic must be a loop, and existence is a logical necessity inferred by the loop.

Including the indefinite in the process of definition has far reaching consequences. It means that the tools of the definition are necessarily included in the definition. It means that meaning can only occur when there is both definition and also experience. It means that consciousness (whether it succeeds to define or not) must be part of science or any so-called objective endeavor. It means that any and all perception includes experience. The interaction with the indefinite, the experience, is what gives meaning to the defined. Perception, meaningful definition, can only occur in a highly flexible complex system that can learn and change. That抯 the difference between us and an electron, which only has fixed relations, and consequently, limited interactions. An electron always succeeds in defining, or it would be more correct to say, it can only interact with what it succeeds in defining. If it encounters the indefinite, it assumes a state of superposition.

Where is God in the loop of Creation? If we wanted to define God, the totality, we could not define God, because by the act of definition we would create the beyond, what is beyond God, which contradicts God抯 totality. Therefore, no definition of God would do justice to God, and every such definition would truncate God抯 wholeness. If God is indefinable, then God is indefinite. If God is indefinite, then I create God by the implication of the act of definition ?any definition, because every definition creates the beyond, the indefinite beyond the borders of the definition. In that sense, this is consistent with the statement that I create God by my perception (definition). This does not say that I perceive God, but that my perception implies the existence of the indefinite (God). This means that if I perceive a dog, this perception implies the existence of God. If I perceive that I perceive, then that implies the existence of God. If I perceive dust, a table, an idea, whatever, then that implies the existence of God. If I experience, then that implies the existence of God. That抯 because any existence implies the existence of God. And that抯 because any existence is such if it relates or is related to, if it has meaning, if even partially it has been defined, which means, its mere definition implies the indefinite beyond the borders of the definition, it implies God, the indefinable. So one cannot directly perceive God (perhaps that is why it was stated in the Bible that no one could see God抯 face and live = exist ?搉o man shall see me and live厰 ?Exodus 33: 20), but only know about God by implication, which means, the implication of the indefinite ?God ?is what attributes meaning to any existence.

However, 揋od?does not equal 搃ndefinite,?but the process that implies the existence of the indefinite is what could be said to be God, since that抯 the process of Creation. This is the process of Creation that both creates something, existence, and also nothing, the indefinite. This is why this logic is a loop.
?Clara Szalai

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The Emerald Buddha

2011-10-04T02:04:00.000-07:00

The Emerald Buddha is a figurine of a sitting Budha, that is the is the palladium of the Kingdom of Thailand. The Buddha is made of green jade, suprisingly not of emerald, clothed in gold is approximately 45 cm tall. The Buddha is kept in the Chapel of the Emerald Buddha, which is located on the grounds of the Grand Palace in Bangkok.

Legend tells that that the Emerald Buddha was created in Pataliputra, India, which is now the city of Patna in 43 BCE by Nagasena. Other great historians beleive that it belongs to the Chiang Saen Style of the 15th century. The legend says that, it remained in Pataliputra for 300 hundred years, until it was taken to Sri Lanka to save it from a civil war. It was then in 457, that King Anuruth of Burma sent out orders to Ceylon to ask for the Emerald Budha and Buddhist scriptures. These actions took place by the king, to try and support Buddhism in his country. This request was granted, however the ship that was brining the Buddha to Burma, became lost in a storm and ended up in Cambodia. The Buddha made it's way through several hands after that: Ayutthaya, Kamphaeng Phet, Lao and finally Chiang Rai. It was finally in Chiang Rai that the ruler of the city hid it.

It wasn't until 1434 that sources indicate the resurfacing of the statue in Northern Thailand. There is one story about the discovery: "lightning struck a pagoda in a temple in Chiang Rai, after which something became visible under the stucco. The Emerald Buddha was dug out and the people thought the figurine was made from emerald, hence its current name."

Although, the Buddha is just a simple jade statue, it is dressed with garments that are made of fine gold. The Buddha's clothing are changed by the King of Thailand, to celebrate the chaning of seasons. This occurs three times a year: 1st Waning of Lunar Month 4, 8 and 12

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Comment On the Importance of Human Life

2011-10-03T21:31:00.000-07:00

The preservation of human life is the ultimate value, a pillar of ethics and the foundation of all morality. This held true in most cultures and societies throughout history.

On first impression, the last sentence sounds patently wrong. We all know about human collectives that regarded human lives as dispensable, that murdered and tortured, that cleansed and annihilated whole populations in recurrent genocides. Surely, these defy the aforementioned statement?

Liberal philosophies claim that human life was treated as a prime value throughout the ages. Authoritarian regimes do not contest the over-riding importance of this value. Life is sacred, valuable, to be cherished and preserved. But, in totalitarian societies, it can be deferred, subsumed, subjected to higher goals, quantized, and, therefore, applied with differential rigor in the following circumstances:

1.. Quantitative - when a lesser evil prevents a greater one. Sacrificing the lives of the few to save the lives of the many is a principle enshrined and embedded in activities such as war and medicinal care. All cultures, no matter how steeped (or rooted) in liberal lore accept it. They all send soldiers to die to save the more numerous civilian population. Medical doctors sacrifice lives daily, to save others.

It is boils down to a quantitative assessment ("the numerical ratio between those saved and those sacrificed"), and to questions of quality ("are there privileged lives whose saving or preservation is worth the sacrifice of others' lives?") and of evaluation (no one can safely predict the results of such moral dilemmas - will lives be saved as the result of the sacrifice?).

2.. Temporal - when sacrificing life (voluntarily or not) in the present secures a better life for others in the future. These future lives need not be more numerous than the lives sacrificed. A life in the future immediately acquires the connotation of youth in need of protection. It is the old sacrificed for the sake of the new, a trade off between those who already had their share of life - and those who hadn't. It is the bloody equivalent of a savings plan: one defers present consumption to the future.

The mirror image of this temporal argument belongs to the third group (see next), the qualitative one. It prefers to sacrifice a life in the present so that another life, also in the present, will continue to exist in the future. Abortion is an instance of this approach: the life of the child is sacrificed to secure the future well-being of the mother. In Judaism, it is forbidden to kill a female bird. Better to kill its off-spring. The mother has the potential to compensate for this loss of life by bringing giving birth to other chicks.

3.. Qualitative - This is an especially vicious variant because it purports to endow subjective notions and views with "scientific" objectivity. People are judged to belong to different qualitative groups (classified by race, skin color, birth, gender, age, wealth, or other arbitrary parameters). The result of this immoral taxonomy is that the lives of the "lesser" brands of humans are considered less "weighty" and worthy than the lives of the upper grades of humanity. The former are therefore sacrificed to benefit the latter. The Jews in Nazi occupied Europe, the black slaves in America, the aborigines in Australia are three examples of such pernicious thinking.

4.. Utilitarian - When the sacrifice of one life brings another person material or other benefits. This is the thinking (and action) which characterizes psychopaths and sociopathic criminals, for instance. For them, life is a tradable commodity and it can be exchanged against inanimate goods and services. Money and drugs are bartered for life.

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Althusser - Competing Interpellations and the Third Text

2011-10-03T17:55:00.000-07:00

With the exception of Nietzsche, no other madman has contributed so much to human sanity as has Louis Althusser. He is mentioned twice in the Encyclopaedia Britannica as someone's teacher. There could be no greater lapse: for two important decades (the 60s and the 70s), Althusser was at the eye of all the important cultural storms. He fathered quite a few of them.

This newly-found obscurity forces me to summarize his work before suggesting a few (minor) modifications to it.

(1) Society consists of practices: economic, political and ideological.

Althusser defines a practice as:

"Any process of transformation of a determinate product, affected
by a determinate human labour, using determinate means (of production)"

The economic practice (the historically specific mode of production) transforms raw materials to finished products using human labour and other means of production, all organized within defined webs of inter-relations. The political practice does the same with social relations as the raw materials. Finally, ideology is the transformation of the way that a subject relates to his real life conditions of existence.

This is a rejection of the mechanistic worldview (replete with bases and superstructures). It is a rejection of the Marxist theorization of ideology. It is a rejection of the Hegelian fascist "social totality". It is a dynamic, revealing, modern day model.

In it, the very existence and reproduction of the social base (not merely its expression) is dependent upon the social superstructure. The superstructure is "relatively autonomous" and ideology has a central part in it - see entry about Marx and Engels and entry concerning Hegel.

The economic structure is determinant but another structure could be dominant, depending on the historical conjuncture. Determination (now called over-determination - see Note) specifies the form of economic production upon which the dominant practice depends. Put otherwise: the economic is determinant not because the practices of the social formation (political and ideological) are the social formation's expressive epiphenomena - but because it determines WHICH of them is dominant.

(2) People relate to the conditions of existence through the practice of ideology. Contradictions are smoothed over and (real) problems are offered false (though seemingly true) solutions. Thus, ideology has a realistic dimension - and a dimension of representations (myths, concepts, ideas, images). There is (harsh, conflicting) reality - and the way that we represent it both to ourselves and to others.

(3) To achieve the above, ideology must not be seen to err or, worse, remain speechless. It, therefore, confronts and poses (to itself) only answerable questions. This way, it remains confined to a fabulous, legendary, contradiction-free domain. It ignores other questions altogether.

(4) Althusser introduced the concept of "The Problematic":

"The objective internal reference ... the system of questions
commanding the answers given"

It determines which problems, questions and answers are part of the game - and which should be blacklisted and never as much as mentioned. It is a structure of theory (ideology), a framework and the repertoire of discourses which - ultimately - yield a text or a practice. All the rest is excluded.

It, therefore, becomes clear that what is omitted is of no less importance than what is included in a text. The problematic of a text relates to its historical context ("moment") by incorporating both: inclusions as well as omissions, presences as much as absences. The problematic of the text fosters the generation of answers to posed questions - and of defective answers to excluded questions.

(5) The task of "scientific" (e.g., Marxist) discourse, of Althusserian critical practice is to deconstruct the problematic, to read through ideology and evidence the real conditions of existence. This is a "symptomatic reading" of TWO TEXTS:

"It divulges the undivulged event in the text that it reads and, in the
same movement, relates to it a different text, present, as a necessary
absence, in the first ... (Marx's reading of Adam Smith) presupposes
the existence of two texts and the measurement of the first against
the second. But what distinguishes this new reading from the old,
is the fact that in the new one, the second text is articulated with the
lapses in the first text ... (Marx measures) the problematic contained
in the paradox of an answer which does not correspond to any questions posed."

Althusser is contrasting the manifest text with a latent text which is the result of the lapses, distortions, silences and absences in the manifest text. The latent text is the "diary of the struggle" of the unposed question to be posed and answered.

(6) Ideology is a practice with lived and material dimensions. It has costumes, rituals, behaviour patterns, ways of thinking. The State employs Ideological Apparatuses (ISAs) to reproduce ideology through practices and productions: (organized) religion, the education system, the family, (organized) politics, the media, the industries of culture.

"All ideology has the function (which defines it) of 'constructing'
concrete individuals as subjects"

Subjects to what? The answer: to the material practices of the ideology. This (the creation of subjects) is done by the acts of "hailing" or "interpellation". These are acts of attracting attention (hailing) , forcing the individuals to generate meaning (interpretation) and making them participate in the practice.

These theoretical tools were widely used to analyze the Advertising and the film industries.

The ideology of consumption (which is, undeniably, the most material of all practices) uses advertising to transform individuals to subjects (=to consumers). It uses advertising to interpellate them. The advertisements attract attention, force people to introduce meaning to them and, as a result, to consume. The most famous example is the use of "People like you (buy this or do that)" in ads. The reader / viewer is interpellated both as an individual ("you") and as a member of a group ("people like..."). He occupies the empty (imaginary) space of the "you" in the ad. This is ideological "misrecognition". First, many others misrecognize themselves as that "you" (an impossibility in the real world). Secondly, the misrecognized "you" exists only in the ad because it was created by it, it has no real world correlate.

The reader or viewer of the ad is transformed into the subject of (and subject to) the material practice of the ideology (consumption, in this case).

Althusser was a Marxist. The dominant mode of production in his days (and even more so today) was capitalism. His implied criticism of the material dimensions of ideological practices should be taken with more than a grain of salt. Interpellated by the ideology of Marxism himself, he generalized on his personal experience and described ideologies as infallible, omnipotent, ever successful. Ideologies, to him, were impeccably functioning machines which can always be relied upon to reproduce subjects with all the habits and thought patterns required by the dominant mode of production.

And this is where Althusser fails, trapped by dogmatism and more than a touch of paranoia. He neglects to treat two all-important questions (his problematic may have not allowed it):

(a) What do ideologies look for? Why do they engage in their practice? What is the ultimate goal?

(b) What happens in a pluralistic environment rich in competing ideologies?

Althusser stipulates the existence of two texts, manifest and hidden. The latter co-exists with the former, very much as a black figure defines its white background. The background is also a figure and it is only arbitrarily - the result of historical conditioning - that we bestow a preferred status upon the one. The latent text can be extracted from the manifest one by listening to the absences, the lapses and the silences in the manifest text.

But: what dictates the laws of extraction? how do we know that the latent text thus exposed is THE right one? Surely, there must exist a procedure of comparison, authentication and verification of the latent text?

A comparison of the resulting latent text to the manifest text from which it was extracted would be futile because it would be recursive. This is not even a process of iteration. It is teutological. There must exist a THIRD, "master-text", a privileged text, historically invariant, reliable, unequivocal (indifferent to interpretation-frameworks), universally accessible, atemporal and non-spatial. This third text is COMPLETE in the sense that it includes both the manifest and the latent. Actually, it should include all the possible texts (a LIBRARY function). The historical moment will determine which of them will be manifest and which latent, according to the needs of the mode of production and the various practices. Not all these texts will be conscious and accessible to the individual but such a text would embody and dictate the rules of comparison between the manifest text and ITSELF (the Third Text) , being the COMPLETE text.

Only through a comparison between a partial text and a complete text can the deficiencies of the partial text be exposed. A comparison between partial texts will yield no certain results and a comparison between the text and itself (as Althusser suggests) is absolutely meaningless.

This Third Text is the human psyche. We constantly compare texts that we read to this Third Text, a copy of which we all carry with us. We are unaware of most of the texts incorporated in this master text of ours. When faced with a manifest text which is new to us, we first "download" the "rules of comparison (engagement)". We sift through the manifest text. We compare it to our COMPLETE master text and see which parts are missing. These constitute the latent text. The manifest text serves as a trigger which brings to our consciousness appropriate and relevant portions of the Third Text. It also generates the latent text in us.

If this sounds familiar it is because this pattern of confronting (the manifest text), comparing (with our master text) and storing the results (the latent text and the manifest text are brought to consciousness) - is used by mother nature itself. The DNA is such a "Master Text, Third Text". It includes all the genetic-biological texts some manifest, some latent. Only stimuli in its environment (=a manifest text) can provoke it to generate its own (hitherto latent) "text". The same would apply to computer applications.

The Third Text, therefore, has an invariant nature (it includes all possible texts) - and, yet, is changeable by interacting with manifest texts. This contradiction is only apparent. The Third Text does not change - only different parts of it are brought to our awareness as a result of the interaction with the manifest text. We can also safely say that one does not need to be an Althusserian critic or engage in "scientific" discourse to deconstruct the problematic. Every reader of text immediately and always deconstructs it. The very act of reading involves comparison with the Third Text which inevitably leads to the generation of a latent text.

And this precisely is why some interpellations fail. The subject deconstructs every message even if he is not trained in critical practice. He is interpellated or fails to be interpellated depending on what latent message was generated through the comparison with the Third Text. And because the Third Text includes ALL possible texts, the subject is given to numerous competing interpellations offered by many ideologies, mostly at odds with each other. The subject is in an environment of COMPETING INTERPELLATIONS (especially in this day and age of information glut). The failure of one interpellation - normally means the success of another (whose interpellation is based on the latent text generated in the comparison process or on a manifest text of its own, or on a latent text generated by another text).

There are competing ideologies even in the most severe of authoritarian regimes. Sometimes, IASs within the same social formation offer competing ideologies: the political Party, the Church, the Family, the Army, the Media, the Civilian Regime, the Bureaucracy. To assume that interpellations are offered to the potential subjects successively (and not in parallel) defies experience (though it does simplify the thought-system).

Clarifying the HOW, though, does not shed light on the WHY.

Advertising leads to the interpellation of the subject to effect the material practice of consumption. Put more simply: there is money involved. Other ideologies - propagated through organized religions, for instance - lead to prayer. Could this be the material practice that they are looking for? No way. Money, prayer, the very ability to interpellate - they are all representations of power over other human beings. The business concern, the church, the political party, the family, the media, the culture industries - are all looking for the same thing: influence, power, might. Absurdly, interpellation is used to secure one paramount thing: the ability to interpellate. Behind every material practice stands a psychological practice (very much as the Third Text - the psyche - stands behind every text, latent or manifest).

The media could be different: money, spiritual prowess, physical brutality, subtle messages. But everyone (even individuals in their private life) is looking to hail and interpellate others and thus manipulate them to succumb to their material practices. A short sighted view would say that the businessman interpellates in order to make money. But the important question is: what ever for? What drives ideologies to establish material practices and to interpellate people to participate in them and become subjects? The will to power. the wish to be able to interpellate. It is this cyclical nature of Althusser's teachings (ideologies interpellate in order to be able to interpellate) and his dogmatic approach (ideologies never fail) which doomed his otherwise brilliant observations to oblivion.

Note

In Althusser's writings the Marxist determination remains as Over-determination. This is a structured articulation of a number of contradictions and determinations (between the practices). This is very reminiscent of Freud's Dream Theory and of the concept of Superposition in Quantum Mechanics.

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Fact and Truth

2011-10-03T14:20:00.000-07:00

Thought experiments (Gedankenexperimenten) are "facts" in the sense that they have a "real life" correlate in the form of electrochemical activity in the brain. But it is quite obvious that they do not relate to facts "out there". They are not true statements.

But do they lack truth because they do not relate to facts? How are Truth and Fact interrelated?

One answer is that Truth pertains to the possibility that an event will occur. If true ?it must occur and if false ?it cannot occur. This is a binary world of extreme existential conditions. Must all possible events occur? Of course not. If they do not occur would they still be true? Must a statement have a real life correlate to be true?

Instinctively, the answer is yes. We cannot conceive of a thought divorced from brainwaves. A statement which remains a mere potential seems to exist only in the nether land between truth and falsity. It becomes true only by materializing, by occurring, by matching up with real life. If we could prove that it will never do so, we would have felt justified in classifying it as false. This is the outgrowth of millennia of concrete, Aristotelian logic. Logical statements talk about the world and, therefore, if a statement cannot be shown to relate directly to the world, it is not true.

This approach, however, is the outcome of some underlying assumptions:

First, that the world is finite and also close to its end. To say that something that did not happen cannot be true is to say that it will never happen (i.e., to say that time and space ?the world ?are finite and are about to end momentarily).

Second, truth and falsity are assumed to be mutually exclusive. Quantum and fuzzy logics have long laid this one to rest. There are real world situations that are both true and not-true. A particle can "be" in two places at the same time. This fuzzy logic is incompatible with our daily experiences but if there is anything that we have learnt from physics in the last seven decades it is that the world is incompatible with our daily experiences.

The third assumption is that the psychic realm is but a subset of the material one. We are membranes with a very particular hole-size. We filter through only well defined types of experiences, are equipped with limited (and evolutionarily biased) senses, programmed in a way which tends to sustain us until we die. We are not neutral, objective observers. Actually, the very concept of observer is disputable ?as modern physics, on the one hand and Eastern philosophy, on the other hand, have shown.

Imagine that a mad scientist has succeeded to infuse all the water in the world with a strong hallucinogen. At a given moment, all the people in the world see a huge flying saucer. What can we say about this saucer? Is it true? Is it "real"?

There is little doubt that the saucer does not exist. But who is to say so? If this statement is left unsaid ?does it mean that it cannot exist and, therefore, is untrue? In this case (of the illusionary flying saucer), the statement that remains unsaid is a true statement ?and the statement that is uttered by millions is patently false.

Still, the argument can be made that the flying saucer did exist ?though only in the minds of those who drank the contaminated water. What is this form of existence? In which sense does a hallucination "exist"? The psychophysical problem is that no causal relationship can be established between a thought and its real life correlate, the brainwaves that accompany it. Moreover, this leads to infinite regression. If the brainwaves created the thought ?who created them, who made them happen? In other words: who is it (perhaps what is it) that thinks?

The subject is so convoluted that to say that the mental is a mere subset of the material is to speculate

It is, therefore, advisable to separate the ontological from the epistemological. But which is which? Facts are determined epistemologically and statistically by conscious and intelligent observers. Their "existence" rests on a sound epistemological footing. Yet we assume that in the absence of observers facts will continue their existence, will not lose their "factuality", their real life quality which is observer-independent and invariant.

What about truth? Surely, it rests on solid ontological foundations. Something is or is not true in reality and that is it. But then we saw that truth is determined psychically and, therefore, is vulnerable, for instance, to hallucinations. Moreover, the blurring of the lines in Quantum, non-Aristotelian, logics implies one of two: either that true and false are only "in our heads" (epistemological) ?or that something is wrong with our interpretation of the world, with our exegetic mechanism (brain). If the latter case is true that the world does contain mutually exclusive true and false values ?but the organ which identifies these entities (the brain) has gone awry. The paradox is that the second approach also assumes that at least the perception of true and false values is dependent on the existence of an epistemological detection device.

Can something be true and reality and false in our minds? Of course it can (remember "Rashomon"). Could the reverse be true? Yes, it can. This is what we call optical or sensory illusions. Even solidity is an illusion of our senses ?there are no such things as solid objects (remember the physicist's desk which is 99.99999% vacuum with minute granules of matter floating about).

To reconcile these two concepts, we must let go of the old belief (probably vital to our sanity) that we can know the world. We probably cannot and this is the source of our confusion. The world may be inhabited by "true" things and "false" things. It may be true that truth is existence and falsity is non-existence. But we will never know because we are incapable of knowing anything about the world as it is.

We are, however, fully equipped to know about the mental events inside our heads. It is there that the representations of the real world form. We are acquainted with these representations (concepts, images, symbols, language in general) ?and mistake them for the world itself. Since we have no way of directly knowing the world (without the intervention of our interpretative mechanisms) we are unable to tell when a certain representation corresponds to an event which is observer-independent and invariant and when it corresponds to nothing of the kind. When we see an image ?it could be the result of an interaction with light outside us (objectively "real"), or the result of a dream, a drug induced illusion, fatigue and any other number of brain events not correlated with the real world. These are observer-dependent phenomena and, subject to an agreement between a sufficient number of observers, they are judged to be true or "to have happened" (e.g., religious miracles).

To ask if something is true or not is not a meaningful question unless it relates to our internal world and to our capacity as observers. When we say "true" we mean "exists", or "existed", or "most definitely will exist" (the sun will rise tomorrow). But existence can only be ascertained in our minds. Truth, therefore, is nothing but a state of mind. Existence is determined by observing and comparing the two (the outside and the inside, the real and the mental). This yields a picture of the world which may be closely correlated to reality ?and, yet again, may not.

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Unlocking the Bible Codes

2011-10-03T10:10:00.000-07:00

Did you read the DaVinci Code or maybe see the movie? Did it get you interested in history and secret codes? You do not have to travel to Europe to see the true secrets from history; technology now lets us unlock the oldest secret code in the world, the bible code. For centuries there have been rumors about the secret codes of the bible. Now with the power of your home computer you can unlock the bible codes and see the truth for your self. Whether you are a true believer or a doubtful skeptic, evidence can be found with your own research on the secret codes of the bible.

Bible codes, sometimes referred to as Torah codes, have been part of the Jewish tradition and mystery for over 2000 years. In Hebrew (the language of the original bible) the bible codes are called Gematria which is a translation from ancient Greek which when translated in to English is numerology. Around the time that the Old Testament was written the Greeks were the world leaders in math, so it would be natural that they would influence the composers of the original bible codes. It is information like this that can be found in the software responsible for unlocking the bible codes.

The bible codes can also be seen in other forms of the bible not just the original Hebrew. The King James Version has hidden bible codes and mysteries just waiting to be unlocked. The Greek version of the bible was the first ever translation of the bible and it too has many secrets waiting for you.

Using your home computer you can unlock the bible codes and explore history on your own. There are plenty of wonderful programs and DVDs which reveal the secrets of the bibles codes, and let you explore the magical Holy Land from home. One program called Holy Land Journey takes you on an interactive tour of the Holy Land and matches up bible stories with pictures. There are several bible decoders which are made to work in your native language and help you to start unlocking the secrets of the bible in a simple way so that you can understand.

Start your research now on the Bible codes.

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Tips For Getting The Total Fitness Machine For Your Home Gym

2011-10-03T06:23:00.000-07:00

Fitness is a choice we make to live better, healthier lives. These days when too many people are leading sedentary lives and getting out of shape, getting fit has become a top priority for more and more people. But with so many choices, which total home fitness equipment should you get?

Here are some tips to help you decide which gym equipment can give you a total work out and help you achieve your fitness goals:

What do you really want?
Sometimes the best home fitness machine that can give you a total workout is as simple as a stationary bicycle or a treadmill. Get the home fitness machine that will work best for your own unique requirement and that will address the specific fitness concerns that you may have. Whether you want to lose weight or build muscles, there are different total fitness gym machines that can perform the right combination of tasks to get you where you want to go.

Measurable results
Aim for something that is tangible. If the machine you're looking at promises to tone your thighs, then it should provide enough resistance to do so and not just some vague promise that it will give you long, lean muscles if you keep using it.

Try it for size
Check out the fitness machine and see how the bars and handles will fit into your hands and if the extensions can accommodate you're the length of your legs. Even the simple treadmill comes in lengths that put your body size into consideration.

Consider comfort as one of your top requirements when choosing a home fitness machine. If there are too many demands on parts of your body like your back or knees, your fitness workout will have more negative repercussions than advantages.

No quick and empty promises
You've probably seen a lot of advertisements on TV and in the back of newspapers and magazines trumpeting the newest and best total fitness equipment that will surprise and satisfy you. The sad fact is, most of the time, the hype doesn't equal the actual results.

Stay away from total home fitness gym equipment that promise too much, too many for a too short period of time. There's a good chance that these promises are empty or at best, temporary. If your home fitness equipment works, then it should do so gradually and permanently.

Price
The cost of a total fitness home gym machine can go as little as $800 and as high as over $3,000. Which one you choose will really depend on your budget and fitness goals. And while it may seem a small matter, the size of your available space at home will also figure in your choice. Some home gym machines are bulky and heavy and will need dedicated space if you want to use them efficiently.

Use
A total fitness home gym machine should accommodate the number of users you have in the house. It should also be easy to assemble and allow you to make quick changes in the resistance or weight if necessary. Some home gym machines even allow simultaneous users for different workout stations. This way, you can enjoy a fitness workout with other members of the family.

For a total body workout, a home gym equipment as simple as a rowing machine will perform well. Choose the right resistance for your fitness level and it will work out your upper and lower arms, back, thighs and legs. It's low impact and will not be too harsh on your knees.

If you're already reasonably fit and want to build muscles, you might want to try a universal gym like Tuff Stuff's CFM-555 or BodyCraft Family Xpress home gym. These are the type of home fitness machines that offer a lot in terms of exercise variety. Plus, you get to build strength and muscles with the weight stack that comes with each set. Depending on the model, you can get a basic set with maximum 200-lb. weight stacks.

A compact home gym like the 500HG from True may also be a good choice. It's very affordable (price range starts at about $800) and offers a lot in terms of flexibility and exercise choices. Another home fitness gym machine you might want to try is Gold's Gym's Power Flex, which offers a lot of resistance and can give you 65 ways of doing workouts.

There are dozens of other home fitness equipment in the market that offer total body workout. While cost savings is a powerful incentive to buy, find the best machine that can offer you the features that you need and are willing to use. Purchase fitness equipment for your home gym based on your own judgment and requirement and you're likely to have a total workout that you'll enjoy and benefit from.

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Vampires: the Romantic Ideology behind Them

2011-10-03T06:06:00.000-07:00

The French Revolution constituted for the conscience of the dominant aristocratic class a fall from innocence, and upturning of the natural chain of events that resounded all over Europe; the old regime became, in their imaginary, a paradise lost. This explains why some romantic poets born in the higher classes were keen on seeing themselves as faded aristocrats, expelled from their comfortable milieu by a reverse of fortune or a design of destiny. Byron and Shelley are the prime instances of this vital pose. In The Giaour he writes on a vampiric character: 揟he common crowd but see the gloom/ Of wayward deeds and fitting doom;/ The close observer can espy/A noble soul, and lineage high.?
Byron departed from England leaving a trail of scandal over his marital conduct and since then saw himself as an exiled expatriate. Shelley was expelled from Oxford and he fell in disgrace by marrying an in-keeper抯 daughter; he always struggled to reconcile his origin with his political ideas: 揝helley could find no way of resolving his own contradictory opinions?(Cronin, 2000).

This icon of the fallen aristocrat is rooted on another character revered by romantic poets: the fallen angel. As Mario Praz proves, miltonic Satan became the rebel figure of choice among romantic poets. Milton reversed the medieval idea of a hideous Satan and wrapped its figure with the epic grandeur of an angel fallen in disgrace. Many of the byronic heros share with Milton抯 Satan this fallen-from-grace condition, such as Lara: "There was in him a vital scorn of all:/
As if the worst had fall'n which could befall,/ stood a stranger in this breathing world,/An erring spirit from another hurl抎" ( Lara XVIII 315-16)

There is another social factor that is behind the formation of the romantic myth of the vampire. In the early nineteen century, the foundations of what would later become a mass society were laid; the expansion of the press and of the reading public produced an increased diffusion for literary works and fostered movements such as the gothic and the sensation novel. Byron himself experienced the event of being turned into a proto-bestseller. The unification of literary taste and preferences that was a correlate to this social changes could not be more alien to the romantic notion of individual gusto and original sensibility. In order to combat this unifying forces, romantic poets revered the individual who stands outside society and is free from common concerns. Many of Byron抯 heros look down on the masses from above, even though they walk among them and do not lean towards wordsworthian escapades into nature; they achieve to remain untainted by the masses in a sort of exile within the world akin to that of a ghost or a dammed spirit. This self-definition of Manfred is revelatory:

From my youth upwards
My spirit walk抎 not with the souls of men,
Nor look抎 upon the earth with human eyes;
The thirst of their ambition was not mine,
The aim of their existence was not mine;
My joys, my griefs, my passions, and my powers
Made me a stranger; though I wore the form,
I had no sympathy with breathing flesh, (Manfred II, ii, 50-58)

Not only Byron抯 works contrived to produce the modern image of the vampire in relation to the Male Seducer archetype, but also some odd events in his life and the life of those surrounding him exercised a decisive influence. A critical study bundled with an anthology of vampire tales (Conde de Siruela, 2001) attributes to the short story The Vampire (1819) by John William Polidori the fixation of the 揷lassical images of the literary vampire as a villanious, cold and enigmatic aristocrat; but, above all, perverse and fascinating for women? Mario Praz, in the same line, also states that Byron was 搇argely responsible for the vogue of vampirism? Polidori was the unfortunate doctor and personal assistant of Lord Byron who died half-crazy at 25. The idea for the tale published in 1819 came from the famous meetings at Villa Diodati on June 1816 between Byron, Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley and Polidori, in what was probably the most influential gathering for fantastic fiction in the history of modern literature. In order to pass the stormy and ether-fuelled nights, they agreed to write each one a ghost story. Mary Shelley (who was then 17 years old) got during these nights the idea of what later became Frankenstein and Polidori wrote the tale The Vampire that he would publish three years later. The story appeared in the New Monthly Magazine falsely attributed by the editor to Lord Byron (taking advantages of the aura of Satanism that surrounded the poet in the popular view to promote the sales of the magazine). A misguided Goethe hailed the story as the best that Lord Byron had ever written. The tale was, actually, a covert portrait of Lord Byron disguised as the vampire Lord Ruthven, a cruel gambler and killer of innocent girls. Polidori had introduced in the story fragments from an autobiographical and revengeful novel called Glenarvon written by Caroline Lamb, an ex-lover of Byron. The Lord磗 reaction was a threat to the editor and the denouncing of a commercial imposture with his name. Eventually Stoker磗 Dracula (1897) blended, according to Siruela (2001), this tradition derived from Polidori磗 Lord Ruthven with some old romano-hungarian tales of wandering dead and enchanted castles, fixating thus the modern images of the vampire.

The vampire is closely linked to another romantic archetype: the dissatisfied lover. Rafael Argullol summarizes its traits: 揺l enamorado rom醤tico reconoce en la consumaci髇 amorosa el punto de inflexi髇 a partir del cual la pasi髇 muestra su faz desposedora y exterminadora.? The romantic lover begins to feel a sense of dissatisfaction, caducity and mortality at the very moment when his passion is fulfilled. This feeling prompts him to embark in a sentimental rollercoaster where each peak of satisfaction is followed by a valley of despair and the impulse to seek satisfaction in a new object of love in order to renew the faded passion (the extreme of this attitude is the character of Don Juan). The vampire goes one step further than the seducer: for him the loved one stands as an image of his own dissatisfaction and it must be destroyed at the very moment when the longing for her disappears; at the instant of consummation. Again Byron in Manfred expresses this transference, which Argullol opportunely labels as romantic self-mirroring: 揑 loved her, and destroy'd her! (211)? Keats conveys in his Ode on Melancholy the feeling of mortality that is hidden in the moment of pleasure for the romantic: 揟urning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:/ Ay, in the very temple of Delight/Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,/ Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue/Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine? La belle dame sans merci is according to Argullol also a poem where 搗ida y muerte se vivifican y complementan mutuamente [...] se hallan en total simbiosis? But there is a crucial difference between Byron and Keats in their approach to the fatal lover: Byron抯 characters are fatal males, epitomized in the vampire, while Keats?characters are femmes fatales. This difference underlines a different attitude to gender issues: Byron liked to emanate a dominant masculinity which is imprinted in all his leading characters. Keats, however, had a passive approach to love, his poetic personas like to be seduced even if that means, as we have seen, to be killed. Byron is the male aristocrat who thinks all women are naturally his, they are his possessions and, as such, disposable at will. Keats, who disliked Byron抯 Don Juan - in a letter to his brother, he referred to it as 揕ord Byron's last flash poem? announces a more modern and non-patriarchal approach to love where the woman is free to be the seducer. Nevertheless, as we have seen, they both share the extreme notion of love as creation and destruction at the same time; and their characters, though of different gender, are vampire lovers. This different attitude is not only personal but it mirrors a wider and epochal distinction. Mario Praz has observed how the fatal and cruel lovers of the first half of the nineteenth century are chiefly males, while in the second half of the century the roles are gradually inverted until late century decadentism is dominated by femmes fatales. This literary process mirrors the advancement of social changes throughout the century, and the slow but continuous emancipation of love from patriarchal standards. Gender issues shift focus, but power and domination remain at the core of the portrayals of love even in the fully bourgeoisie society of the late nineteenth century. Goodland (2000) has explored the role of women as a redundant class subject to another classes and the gender/class dialectic found in the vampire.

Not only Byron and Keats were fascinated by the myth of the vampire, but we can find its presence in most romantic poets, even in the proto-romantic early Goethe. A list of authors who use such characters made by Twitchell (1981) comprises: Southey in Thalaba the destroyer, Coleridge in Christabel and Wordsworth in The Leech Gatherer.

As we have seen throughout this paper the figure of the vampire is shaped in the romantic period under the form of an ideological knot where many social forces converge: the French Revolution, an embryonic mass society, the decline of aristocracy and the gradual shifting apart of gender divisions from the patriarchal model. Therefore, it constitutes a myth that may be read as a battleground for the play of discourses of its era, shedding light on other romantic attitudes towards existence. As such it is subject to an analysis that, as new historicisms maintain, is aware of the historicity of a text and the textuality of history.

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This Mother's Day -- Give The Gift Of Fitness

2011-10-01T11:58:00.000-07:00

Do you know a Mom that deserves a special gift this year for Mother's Day? I'm sure you know at least one, if not more. Sure, flowers can always brighten a Mom's day and a dinner out is always appreciated. But, doesn't she deserve something more personal, something that won't wilt and something that lasts longer than an evening? This year give that special woman a gift that will improve her well being.

I'm talking about the gift of fitness. Improved fitness is a gift that is invaluable to everyone. After all, what woman doesn't want to look better, have more energy, and be healthier? Plus, all Moms need to take time for themselves, but most are reluctant to schedule that "me" time. So, give them a gift that will help encourage them to enjoy some alone time .

When you give a woman the gift of fitness, you are helping her open a door to better health (both physically and mentally). I can't think of a more thoughtful gift that shows the recipient how much you care about their well being. By giving the gift of fitness you are providing them with unlimited health benefits. And, it's a gift that you can truly feel proud to give.

Of course, we all know that exercise can help people stay slim and fit. But, do you also know about all the other great benefits of exercising? Daily physical activity reduces stress and can help you sleep better. Fitness has been linked to reducing the risk of some diseases and to warding off depression. Researchers also believe that strength training can help prevent osteoporosis. Not to mention that exercise also improves self-esteem, increases stamina and ultimately helps you be able to do continuous work for longer.

All Moms would find these fitness benefits incredibly invaluable. If she is like most of us, she's probably even mentioned how she would like to drop a few pounds or just get in better shape. In fact, experts say that about 62% of Americans are currently on a diet. By giving the gift of fitness you are helping provide her with extra motivation (which is one of the biggest obstacles in getting fit). She may be more motivated to actually get fit because she doesn't want to feel guilty for ignoring such a thoughtful gift (personal training gift certificates and gym memberships are especially good for helping with motivation).

While fitness gifts are incredibly valuable, they don't have to be expensive. Gifts can cost as little as $5 or range into the $100s of dollars. Here are a few suggestions in the various price ranges:

Under $15:

Resistance Band Dumbbells Jump Rope Exercise Mat

$15 - $35

Fitness Ball Online Personal Training Program (custom designed for the gift recipient) Home Exercise Video Heart Rate Monitor

Over $35

Full dumbbell and barbell set Treadmill Bicycle Yoga Kit

Giving something that supports health and wellness will be appreciated for years to come and may even turn someone's life around. The gift of fitness will make her feel special - she'll know that someone cared enough to give her the opportunity to improve her health. And, giving a gift that will help someone lead a healthier life is also one of the most rewarding gifts you can give. So why spend another Mother's Day searching for the perfect gift only to end up with the same old things? Surprise her this year and give the gift that comes from the heart and truly keeps on giving throughout summer and beyond.

Want to enjoy the benefits of improved fitness for yourself? There's no need to wait for someone to give you the gift of fitness. Treat yourself to a special fitness gift - you deserve it!

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Reebok Fitness Equipment Review

2011-09-29T23:22:00.000-07:00

The ancestral company of Reebok was founded way back in 1895, in England. Joseph Foster, the manufacturer, was keen on producing shoes for running that contained spikes in them. The rest, as they say, is history. In 1958, two grandson's of Joseph started a sister company "Reebok", named after an African Gazelle. The Company's headquarters today are located at Canton, Massachusetts. Its product is being sold across more than 130 countries and employs more than 6000 employees in its 21 subsidiaries on foreign shores. The company has multi-year licensing deals with NBA and NFL.

If you had assumed Reebok was only into manufacturing shoes, clothing and other related accessories then you are mistaken. Over the years, the company has diversified their presence into other segments as well. Fitness equipment is one such segment where they have made their presence felt. Exercise Bikes, Treadmills, Elliptical Trainers, and Home Gyms are just a few products that are synonymous with the Reebok brand. Some of the equipment is being produced not by Reebok but by other companies. Take the case of treadmills: they are produced by a separate company called Icon Health and Fitness. Reebok however sell them under their brand name. These treadmills are designed for home users. Two popular treadmills that have made a name for themselves are the 3500C and 5500C.

If you are looking at Elliptical machines from Reebok, there are plenty to choose from. Among the budgeted machines that are available to you are the Reebok 725, 525, and 645. If however you are constrained with your finances then a Trec Elliptical Trainer is your best bet. This Elliptical Trainer is of a very high quality, and offers you a wide range of options like heart rate monitoring, resistance control and so on. Buying any of these Trainers can work wonders for you as Reebok's Trainer products are considered to be the finest in the market. Reebok Exercise Bikes are yet another product range you can look forward to while you are shopping. These bikes are quite well known in the fitness circles and can provide you with an enjoyable way of working out a session.

The key feature that separates Reebok Exercise Bikes from the rest is that they allow users to entertain themselves while working out. With most Bikes, there is an added option of computer games that allows the Bike riders to play while they are busy exercising. In addition to the games, bikes are incorporated with other useful tools like a heart rate monitor that automatically monitors the rate at which your heart beats while you are on a Bike. The RB310 is a popular Bike in this category. Reebok's Home Gyms are available in different types. A few of these types include Traditional, Power cage, and Power rack. Typically, these Home Gyms do not consist of different pieces that are attached together by the user. They are usually a single piece of equipment. Different weights can be added or dropped depending upon the type of exercise that needs to be performed.

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Realistic Fitness Programs

2011-09-28T14:38:00.000-07:00

Fitness comes from constantly making healthy selections, exercising regularly, eating well, getting proper sleep, and opting for activities that increase flexibility, stamina, and strength. Realistic fitness programs start with personal interviews, inquiring about the present health and fitness status of individuals, and their goals. They also explain the risk of participating in exercise, and discuss any legal documents to be signed before beginning any form of fitness training.

Realistic fitness programs are those that have goals that are capable of being carried out and are achievable. These are carefully designed so that secure and effective programs can be developed to meet the lifestyle and fitness goals of different individuals.

Instructors conduct fitness tests and assessments prior to deciding on any program. This is important and necessary so that instructors can screen for risk factors. These tests also make it possible to check if there are any health problems or medical limitations and facilitate in deciding the best fitness programs.

Fitness assessments assist in creating a baseline with the help of which improvements can be measured. They also facilitate in developing personalized programs for optimum health and measure success over time. Mostly assessments comprise of cardio respiratory fitness and body composition assessments, muscular strength testing and stamina testing, as well as a flexibility assessment.

Realistic fitness programs also involve looking at the workout schedules practically. This means individuals must decide how many days they are willing to commit to exercise programs, and how long to take per workout. Then these have to be entered in the schedule. The set objectives then tend to become more easily approachable and achievable.

Realistic fitness programs will vary from individual to individual based on several factors such as age, sex, medical problems, and many other factors. Some gyms may offer fitness programs such as arthritis exercise, youth fitness, adolescent programs, healthy back exercise, and flexibility and stretching programs. There may be exercise programs for larger adults, free-weight programs, cardiovascular programs, pre-natal treatment, post pregnancy programs, and weight loss programs.

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Physical Fitness & You

2011-09-26T15:50:00.000-07:00

Physical fitness is to the human body what fine-tuning is to an engine. It is not a race, it's a pursuit. In its most general meaning, physical fitness is a general state of good physical health. It is a foundation for a long and successful life.

Physical fitness is usually measured by periodic tests measuring strength, endurance, agility, coordination, and flexibility. Physical fitness is the capacity of the heart, blood vessels, lungs, and muscles to function at optimum efficiency.

It has two meanings -- General fitness (a state of health and well-being) and specific fitness (the ability to perform specific aspects of sports or occupations). Physical Fitness is important, even on bed rest.

A general-purpose physical fitness program must address the following essentials:

Cardiovascular Fitness: It is the ability of the circulatory and respiratory systems to supply oxygen to muscles during continuing physical activity.

Regular exercises enable more blood to be pumped with each stroke of heart.

Flexibility Training: Stretching increases the range of motion of a joint. It improves suppleness.

Strength Training: Strength training is the use of resistance to muscular contraction to build the strength, and size of skeletal muscles.

Muscular Endurance: Endurance is the ability to exert for a long period of time. In humans, it is usually used in aerobic or anaerobic exercise.

Body Composition: In physical fitness, body composition is used to describe the percentages of fat, bone and muscle in human bodies.

Fitness

Fitness, most importantly cardio-respiratory fitness, has been directly correlated to the mortality rate. Fitness can be described as a condition that helps us look, feel, and do our best.

In previous years, fitness was commonly defined as the capacity to carry out the day's activities without undue fatigue. These days, physical fitness is considered a measure of the body's ability to function efficiently and effectively in work and leisure activities, to be healthy, to resist diseases, and to meet emergency situations.

Many sources also cite mental and emotional health as an important part of overall fitness. This is often presented in textbooks as a triangle made up of three sub-sections, which represent physical, emotional, and mental fitness.

Physical fitness involves the performance of the heart, lungs, and muscles. And, since what we do with our bodies also affects what we can do with our minds, fitness influences to some degree qualities such as mental alertness and emotional stability.

People normally prefer walking for fitness activities followed in order by: swimming, fishing, bicycle riding, camping, golf, bowling, exercise equipment, hiking, hunting, aerobics, calisthenics, jogging, and tennis. Women prefer fitness-related indoor activities and men prefer outdoor sports.

The top level of physical fitness tends to mesh physiology and psychology. The exercises improve function of the muscular and skeletal systems, enhance circulation, augment energy and elevate overall individual levels of fitness. The level of physical fitness can be influenced by regular, systematic exercise.

As energy depends on nutrition, proper nutrition is important to physical fitness. If diet is not adequate, the fitness level will drop. Overweight, underweight, and weak individuals will have below average fitness levels.

Exercises

Exercise that doesn't raise your heart rate to a certain level and keep it there for 20 minutes won't contribute significantly to cardiovascular fitness. It is better to select exercises that involve total body involvement.

Such exercises improve and maintain fitness most effectively -- e.g. Running, swimming, golf, dancing, cycling, and brisk walking. The correct exercises will help you decrease body fat and increase or maintain muscle mass.

By performing many different exercises for a low number of repetitions, the muscles are strengthened, elongated and toned without creating bulk. Total concentration on the body during each exercise emphasizes movement quality, coordination and breath.

Health

Healthy people have more active and more interesting life. Physical fitness can also prevent or treat many chronic health conditions brought on by unhealthy lifestyle or aging.

To stay healthy it's important to participate in physical activity. Even those of us who haven't always led active lifestyles, increasing our physical activity now will help us live longer & healthier lives.

To live a full and healthy life, exercise must be a part of it. It is the ability to endure, to bear up, to withstand stress, to carry on in circumstances where an unfit person could not continue, and it is a major basis for good health and well-being. A physically fit body has less chance of acute health problems and chronic disease.

Major Benefits of Physical Fitness:

o Feel fresh

o Reduce chance of heart attack & stroke

o Reduce the chances of developing adult onset diabetes

o Reduce chances of being overweight

o Manage stress efficiently

o Experience more energy

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Entrepreneurialism A Duck By Any Different Color

2011-09-25T18:53:00.000-07:00
There once was an ugly duckling with feathers all stubby and brown. He didn?t realize he would one day be a swan so any face-to-face marketing technique he ever used ultimately resulted in widespread ridicule. This of course led the duck/swan to venture away from his family (who also considered him a bit of an odd duck).

Everywhere the duck went he was ridiculed and chased away from other better established (and finely groomed) business fowl.

Then one day while staying at the Blind Pigeon?s Inn he discovered the Internet (free with the weekly rate). The Ugly Duckling had a wealth of work experience in his first few weeks of life so he started a business catering to the camouflage needs of waterfowl during hunting season.

Much to his surprise and delight, orders began arriving and he became very busy. The Ugly Duckling was a regular at the Waterfowl Post Office and his profits grew to the point where the Ugly Duckling bought the Blind Pigeon?s Inn and made it his corporate offices and product warehouse.

He was nervous when Bird Entrepreneur magazine called to see if he would agree to a beak-to-beak interview. He had previously put them off because he was certain they would find his appearance distasteful. When they arrived, Spanky Duckmeister continued to snap photos. The interview went very well and Ugly Duckling was happy to receive his complimentary copy of Bird Entrepreneurs although the publisher must have replaced his photo with a creature far more beautiful than he.

In time the Ugly Duckling (now a glorious swan) would come to understand that time had changed his appearance and his entrepreneurial spirit found ultimate freedom online. He always wondered if it was the entrepreneurialism that changed his appearance or simply gave him the confidence he needed for others to see him differently.

The truth is entrepreneurialism won?t change your appearance, but an online business does not discriminate either. Individuals of all ethnicities and ages have discovered the entrepreneurial spirit may be less difficult than starting a business in a brick and mortar store.

Most online stores begin because the entrepreneur has a passion for the product or service being offered. Like our fictional storybook hero it was something that he had a personal use for that resulted in a successful business and with his growing success came a confidence, with that confidence came respect from others who had taken notice of his success.

In the end it really didn?t matter what he looked like, where he lived or how old he was. All that really mattered was that the Ugly Duckling understood the needs of his fowl-feathered friends.

There?s a lesson to be learned from this story ? and it?s not about ducks. Where can your personal passion take you in online business.

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Running a Business on Limited Resources

2011-09-25T15:17:00.000-07:00
When I first started my business, I went to the bank for a business loan. Simple enough, right? I had my business plan in order, an itemized list of everything that I would need to successfully run my business, and all the necessary documents. To put it plainly, I was turned down. Why? Not because I did not have the credit to back it up, or did not have a good business plan. The reason the bank man gave me was "because I did not understand that over 90% of businesses fail within the first year, and that I was not prepared in case mine did."

While I understand he was attempting to look out for my best interest, I felt cheated. He was not even going to give me the opportunity to fail. On some level, everyone that goes into business for themselves understand that chances are, the business will not make it past it's first year, and I was no different. The only thing was I had faith in myself that I would not give up trying. The loan processor took that as I would spend my life savings before giving up, and he did not want to see me financially ruin myself.

So what did I do? I set out on the adventure on my own, only using the limited resources and financial backing that I had. I bought second hand office supplies and furniture. I bought the small cheap laptop instead of the multi-thousand dollar computer specifically designed for what I would be doing. Without the proper money for advertising, I had to get creative. My advertising methods was unconventional, but they worked. I found that I did not need large amounts of money in order to get my business to the world.

So would I have been so successful had the loan processor gave me the business loan I asked for? I am not sure, because after all, I made it without the money, what would have happened if I would have had the proper money for advertising? Whatever the case may have been, I am glad he did not, because I am not better able to understand the limited resources that many small businesses face.

So how can you run your business on limited resources? Here are a few things that I learned along the way.

1) New vs. Used- When starting your business, you do not need everything to be "new." Second hand items cost substantially less then new items, and work just as well. Plus, if you think about it, customers will be more comfortable around your office if it feels "broke-in", rather then new and sterile. It gives them the feeling that you have been in business awhile.

2) Creative Advertising- You do not need the hundreds of dollars that it takes to place ads in papers or put commercials on TV. It costs very little to design and print you own flyers and put them in places where your potential clients would gather. Turn your vehicle into a moving billboard by investing in a vinyl signage for your doors or windows. The best thing? Face to Face meetings with your potential clients do not cost a penny, so look for every opportunity to talk with our potential clients.

3) Work At Home- Depending on your type of business, you may consider working at home rather then renting office space. This will save you a lot of money on rent and furnishing an office. Once your business becomes more successful, then you can always rent office space later.

Overall, be thankful for the struggles that you go through now, because in the future, they will have been well worth it. Plus, it will give you a better understanding when it comes to other small businesses.

And, no matter what, never give up on yourself.
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Additional Articles From - Home | Business | EntrepreneurAbout the Author:

Rebecca Clary has been designing websites for 12 years, and has published over 200 professional business websites. Today, she owns http://www.109websites.com/, a web design firm that focuses on small businesses by providing unique, stunning websites for only $109.
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Separate Yourself from the Pack with Elite Fitness

2011-09-25T14:29:00.000-07:00

What is your fitness goal right now? You have been training for months, or even years, and are probably at a stand-still. You have reached your fitness plateau. Or, have you? Have you found your maximum potential? Have you truly pushed your body to its limits? Can you not get any better than where you're at right now? I highly doubt that you have. The only issue is that you haven't discovered Elite Fitness yet.

Elite fitness is going to push your understanding of your fitness and your body further. You must ensure that you are willing to put in the extra work, time, and pain in towards pushing yourself beyond your current state. Once you have committed yourself to pursue Elite Fitness, then you can begin the journey.

Resistance is futile! No, actually, it's not. From now on, finish your last repetition of your last set for every exercise by doing a negative repetition. This means, that you perform your ninth repetition, and then slowly return the weights to their starting position. This is the beginning of your Elite Fitness program. In the future you should phase in more and more negative repetitions into the third set, until all ten repetitions of the third set are negatives.

Resistance with your cardiovascular routines is good too! You should ride the exercise bicycle at the gym at least twice a week. The best elite fitness tactic is to increase the level of the hill routine on the bike each week. This elite fitness tactic will ensure that you have the strongest legs around the gym, and will increase the explosive power of your legs.

Find more Elite Fitness through weighted exercises. You are now saying, "Well, duh!" What I mean is that you should use weights for exercises which normally don't call or require weights. Take dips for instance. By putting on a weight belt and adding weight to the belt's chain so that you can do weighted dips, you are pushing yourself into the realm of Elite Fitness. Weighted incline sit-ups, are also a good tool to get the elite fitness abs to match the rest of your elite fitness body.

Utilize proper technique to achieve Elite Fitness. You should also focus on slow repetitions with good form. By utilizing a slow and steady movement with good form, you are ensuring proper muscle development, as well as elevated size and strength levels. Elite fitness also requires the utilization of the pyramid technique. This means that you should step up the amount of weight for each set for an exercise. This stepping up of the weight forces your body to utilize more muscle strands in order to complete the same motion that it did before with less weight. Elite fitness will be painful due to a lot of muscle soreness, however you will get the results that you want from them. For more information on Elite Fitness techniques, please visit my free membership site below. I will send you my free fitness tuning techniques that will help you to tune your body to its fullest Elite Fitness potential.

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Become a Successful Part Time Online Entrepreneur in Three Easy Steps Posted By : Margit Streifeneder

2011-09-25T11:42:00.000-07:00
By: Margit Streifeneder
Post Date: 2008-08-19 An idea, a computer, aninternet connection and a step-by-step guide how to set up and market your business is all you need. And if you do it right, the sky is the limit for what you can achieve.
What you'll hate most is the fact that you can't drive your entrepreneurship as fast as you would love to. If, like me, you have a job and a child, a few hours per day are the most you can spend on your business.
But, it can be done. And I'll show you how.
Step One: Find out what excites you
You might do your job because you have to earn your living somehow. Or you might have a profession that interests you. Yet, to become a successful entrepreneur, you have to find out what excites you. Something that makes you jump out of bed every morning. That lets your eyes sparkle when you talk about it. That makes you lose track of time once you plunged into it.
So, grab a piece of paper and a pen and write down seven things that come to your mind: hobbies, passion, life experience, job skills - anything that could become the basis for your entrepreneurship. Then boil it down to your three top candidates.
Step Two: Choose a proven recipe and the right tools
My mom makes the best "Black Forest Cake" you can imagine. When I tried to bake one, the results were mediocre. I asked her what her secret was. It was actually "using no secret" ... combining high quality ingredients, state-of-the art tools and a tried and tested recipe. Yes, you can achieve stunning results, whether baking a cake or creating a business, by doing it your way - but the chances you will fail are so much higher than by following a proven system. So, why take the risk? Let's face it; most of us do NOT have the genius of Bill Gates or Larry Page.
We "normal" people need a step-by-step guide if we are to turn our knowledge, ideas or passion into an online business. Especially if this is your first venture into the world of entrepreneurs. And even more so if you do it in your spare time. I haven't got the time to keep up to date with the newest trends and techniques in the fields of search engine optimisation,internet marketing, web hosting or graphic design. I haven't got the time to learn the ins and outs of Dreamweaver or any other HTML editor before I can build a single web page. Have you?
No? Then "Site Build It" (short "SBI") could be the solution for you, as it was for me. SBI provides all you need for creating a website that works. A website that will be the basis for your online business.
Step Three: Do it ... Now!
Dreaming about becoming a part time entrepreneur is good. Putting together a strategy how to get there is even better. But the only way to be successful is ... to do it. Start now. Don't wait. You have your top three ideas from the mini brainstorming in step one? Great. That's all you need as a start.
SBI then helps you to choose the best and most profitable site concept. From there, it will guide you through a 10 day process, from planning your monetization mix to building long lasting relationships with your visitors or customers. Depending on your circumstances, one day can actually last one day or three months. All you have to do is follow the guide. Read every chapter and watch its video version. Then do it.
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Additional Articles From - Home | Business | EntrepreneurAbout the Author:
Margit Streifeneder was co-owner of a small enterprise doing climate and air pollution studies in Germany. Her passion for the internet led her to her current job at the world's leading search engine. In her spare time, she has been building a thriving online business based on one of her hobbies (balloon decorating). Find out how YOU too could become a successful part time online entrepreneur.

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Entrepreneurialism â Passion Equations

2011-09-25T07:32:00.000-07:00
Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.? ?Harold Whitman

The world in which we live is filled with frightened people. Life has a way of driving the passion for life out of us. If you are reading this because you have an interest in entrepreneurialism then you must have either spark of life or a dream demanding release. Otherwise you would not be here. Have you found an idea you love?

"To love an idea is to love it a little more than one should." ? Jean Rostand

The love of an idea is a consummate risk-taking adventure. There are no promises and failure is possible, yet an entrepreneur must abandon themselves to that place where they find an idea they love knowing that there is a spot just past research and rationalism where there is no turning back.

?Passion, though a bad regulator, is a powerful spring.? ? Ralph Waldo Emerson

The drive that you possess in developing a business idea is bold, noble, misunderstood and altogether powerful. The passion is bound to spring you into action. This is the place where reason must be welcomed to the party.

?If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins.? ? Benjamin Franklin

Like a horse at top speed, like Rags to Riches at Belmont, the life instilling nature of the pursuit of a dream is staring at the finish line and refusing to look back. It is your ability to reason that allows you to correct and guide your passion, but only if reason is applied. If not, you may only be astride a runaway horse.

?Chase down your passion like it's the last bus of the night.? ? Glade Byron Addams

Many entrepreneurs look at their dream as the sum total of their chance at success. For some this proves true, so when you have an idea and passion agrees, run with it.

?Follow your passion, and success will follow you.? ? Arthur Buddhold

Entrepreneurialism allows people to move from a place of simply existing to a place of living. It may seem a little dangerous, but it also regenerates passion in an individual?s life.

?Strong as our passions are, they may be starved into submission, and conquered without being killed.? ? Charles Caleb Colton

We?ve all seen a rodeo on television. Passion without reason is a bit like bronco busting where the ride is thrilling, but short-lived. Reason without passion is more like an aging horse that has no get up and go and is simply a mode of transportation. Passion tempered with reason always stands the best chance of winning the entrepreneurial race in a way that is both fun and moving.

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Start Your Own Business For Free

2011-09-25T03:28:00.000-07:00
Cut through all the hype. Everyone wants to make a quick buck, that's a given. However, when it comes to starting your own business on the internet don't be confused by the glamorous offers that promise you vast wealth and a life style worthy of Bill Gates.

Contrary to what most ?Super Affiliate? system sellers are saying, I can tell you without any question you don?t need to pay and small fortune to get started. In fact you can start your own business for free with just a bit of instruction which I will provide here in this article.

Yes it?s true that the Internet holds the key to amazing fortunes and prosperity for those who understand the methods and tactics that apply. But you can start your own internet business for free today without needing to invest a penny of your own money.

The methods are many but only a few are worthy of your time and effort.

Affiliate marketing is by far the most lucrative and the most common of the online wealth systems. What this means is that you advertise other peoples affiliate products and take a percentage of each sale generated through your affiliate links. Of course you must promote these links on your own dime but there are many free methods of marketing these affiliate links which I will show you.

Many of the best known companies offer affiliate programs through Commission Junction (www.cj.com). Another great beginners program is the Amazon.com Associates program. Go there and look around for more info on these programs. There is no cost to register and begin offering name brand products. So in essence through the Internet you now have a major advantage over the typical brand name brick-and-mortar outlet. In other words you don?t need to purchase any inventory to offer these products.

What you do need is a way to market your affiliate relationship. Affiliate links can be marketed in many ways for free. The easiest methods of marketing your new affiliate relationships are through your existing relationships. That means friends and family, then co-workers and church members. If you have a mailing list you can include your affiliate links in short stories or useful articles related to the product offer. Of course any websites you manage are prime targets for adding a web page to promote your links directly.

Article submissions (Like the one you?re reading now) are another excellent method of self promotion i.e. place a link to your web page in the signature block at the end of the article. While we?re on the subject of signature blocks think of all the places that you provide a signature on a daily basis. Emails, Your Business Card, Blog Comments, Forum Posts?Speaking of Blog comments you can start your own blog for free at Blogger.com or Wordpress.org and create an entire catalog of products. All of these are common tactics of professional Internet Marketing Entrepreneurs.

There is so much more that we can do around this affiliate marketing subject that I could write a book but I digress?

Take advantage of all these free tactics. What you learn in the process will be invaluable to your future success as an online affiliate marketing entrepreneur.

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Motivation â Choice Applications

2011-09-24T23:03:00.001-07:00
The winner is the chef who takes the same ingredients as everyone else and produces the best results.? - Edward de Bono

Application: In order to survive in online business you will find you will be using most of the same tools everyone else is using. How can you make the end result better for your online customers?

Quote: ?No matter who says what, you should accept it with a smile and do your own work.? - Mother Teresa

Application: You will experience unfair criticism. In that moment you have a choice. You can allow the words to crush your spirit or you can simply keep moving forward. What choice will you make?

Quote: ?Winning is not a sometime thing; it's an all time thing. You don't win once in a while, you don't do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time. Winning is habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.? - Vince Lombardi

Application: Choose your habits carefully. The habit you chose today will be reflected in future decisions. Never do just enough to get by ? reach just a little bit further. What business habits need changing?

Quote: "Everyone experiences tough times, it is a measure of your determination and dedication how you deal with them and how you can come through them." - Lakshmi Mittal

Application: When you experience difficulties you have a choice. You can tough it out or you can give up and go home. Is it really time to call it quits? If not, what attitude can you adopt today that will help you move past tomorrow?

Quote: "What I know is, is that if you do work that you love, and the work fulfills you, the rest will come." - Oprah Winfrey

Application: Determining the type of online business that best suits you may be as simple as checking your own personal passions. To develop a business simply because you think it will be successful may not be the best decision in business startup. What is it that you are most passionate about? How can that passion be used to develop an online business?

Quote: "The ability to convert ideas to things is the secret of outward success." - Henry Ward Beecher

Application: When you have an idea, work with it to see if it has life. If there?s even the smallest of spark in the idea bring it into the light, for your idea may be just what the world needs. What idea have you left lonely for far too long?

Conclusion

Most business owners were frightened to move forward with their ideas, but in each case their motives and direction were based on more than a desire for wealth. Personal satisfaction is a tremendous reward in the arena of dream fulfillment.

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Thriving In Your Fitness Business

2011-09-23T17:34:00.000-07:00

It is a well known fact that fitness is one of the well thriving businesses of today. It has been the case for the past few decades. The potential of a fitness based business to reap very good profits was felt by very many fitness experts when the fad for maintaining a perfect health and physique was at its peak, a few decades ago. The late part of the 20th century saw a revolution in the society among developed as well as a few developing nations in terms of general physical as well as mental well being. What prompted a large number of fitness experts and consultants to think about taking up running a fitness based business as a full time occupation was the amount of patronage that fitness and related activities gained among a huge chunk of population among the civilized society.

A good amount of physical education consultants, teachers, coaches, physiotherapists and other experts in the field of fitness started launching fitness-based businesses, that would extend fitness related products or services to the public in general. Even small towns will be likely to have at least a few different varieties of fitness based business running quite successfully.

This trend however, had its advantages as well as its own set of disadvantages. The main advantage that these fitness businesses brought in was that they proved to be a stable source of income to the owner of the fitness business as well as the staff who were recruited in them. However, the same set of advantages also brought in quite a bit of disadvantages too. The fitness businesses soon started gaining to a level of saturation, more so due to the attitude of the fitness business owners themselves. An average fitness business owner tends to be quite finicky about handling the operations of the business all by him or herself. An attitude, that made these fitness business owners to put in all their routine operations and tasks on their own selves. They developed such a possessive attitude towards the operations of their businesses that they would treat every single business routine as their own rightful task to complete. The problem erupts when these fitness business owners, even if they have staffs, do not put them to good use. It could be a fitness center or a gymnasium or a showroom selling fitness products. The routines of any businesses are almost alike. They all require the same type of expertise from staff to perform these tasks. It could be normal day to day accounting processes, attending customer calls or even invoicing.

The main problem lies with the attitude developed by the fitness business owner. They want to have a say in every one of these processes; not just this, they would want to perform them all by themselves. They all ultimately end up at the end of every day, unable to concentrate on activities that would help them increase their business. With the current trend, the average fitness business owner would be able to do nothing but get stagnated in the current state of affairs in their business, without any growth. This is the unfortunate result of wanting to do it all yourself.

The only solution to this problematic trend lies in proper time management and delegating tasks among the employees. The routine tasks in any business should always be handled by the appointed clerical staff. The management or the owner should only be concentrating on the strategic business practices such as increasing their customer base, formulating business strategies to attract more customers or strategies to maintain the loyalty of existing customers and so on.

At the level of being a fitness business owner, it is necessary that the person behaves or even changes his or her attitude to becoming more of a businessman or business women rather than getting stagnated only as a fitness consultant or expert. Delegating of routine tasks is the primary solution that the fitness business owner needs to concentrate on to maintain time and space for them to concentrate on marketing and growing their business.

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The Stubborn Truth About Acne

2011-09-22T22:11:00.000-07:00

Have you ever washed your face more than twice a day to clear up your skin? Do you avoid chocolate and greasy foods in the hopes that when you look in the mirror, you won抰 see another blemish? Have you ever drank more water, or avoided or increased your exercise to prevent acne flare-ups? If you answered yes to any of the above questions, you抮e not alone.

Acne is one of the most common skin disorders affecting nearly 85 percent of all people. While the variety of effective acne treatments continues to grow, so does the number of myths about how to control the condition.

揂lthough new acne treatments are developed every day, a cure for acne has not yet been discovered. As such, many patients choose to self-treat or experiment with unconventional treatments,?stated by a doctor. 揧et many of these treatments are based on anecdotal observations and have not been rigorously tested by science. The survey indicates that these myths are still affecting how patients care for their acne.?
Myth: Poor Hygiene Worsens Acne

The relationship between face washing and acne has always been greatly misunderstood, with most individuals believing that dirt and poor hygiene contribute to acne. In fact, a recent survey conducted at Stanford University asked participants about what they thought made acne worsen, and the majority, 91 percent, mentioned poor hygiene. 揑f a patient believes that dirty skin causes acne, they logically conclude that washing their face more often will improve their acne,?said by a doctor. 揃ut dermatologists caution patients against washing too often, as the resulting irritation can exacerbate their acne.?

To determine the scientific validity of this myth, the effects of face washing on acne were recently studied at Stanford University. A group of twenty-four males washed their faces twice a day for two weeks using a mild over-the-counter facial cleanser. Then the participants were randomly selected to wash their faces either once, twice or four times a day for another six weeks. The study found that washing the face either once, twice or four times daily did not significantly change the appearance or condition of acne, and determined that the positive effects of increased facial cleansing are minimal at best. Dermatologists continue to recommend washing the face twice daily to maintain good overall skin health.

Myths: Exercise Can Clear Acne or Exercise Can Worsen Acne

The relationship between acne and exercise continues to show high levels of individual variability. Some believe that exercise and sweating can help clean out the pores, especially on the chest and back; while others note that their skin worsens when they exercise, especially those who use special equipment that rubs against their skin.

In another study conducted at Stanford University of patients with acne, it was determined that exercise-induced sweat does not have a significant positive or negative influence on acne of the chest and back. Twenty-three male participants were assigned to three groups: no exercise, regular exercise
followed by immediate showering and regular exercise followed by delayed showering. The number of acne lesions on the chest and back were counted over a two week period and no difference was noted between the three groups. 揃ased on the finding of this study, regular exercise can be encouraged for patients with acne,?stated Dr. Boer Kimball. 揃ut they should avoid tight-fitting clothing and equipment. If tight-fitting equipment is required, it should be cleaned on a regular basis.?
Other Acne Myths

While misconceptions about facial hygiene and exercise are still the most commonly recognized acne beliefs, the Stanford survey also found that respondents believed that poor diet and decreased sleep can negatively affect acne. In addition, more than 80 percent of participants believed that increased stress, touching the face and popping pimples exacerbated the condition. Among male and female participants, the only differences noted were that more females believed that increased stress could worsen acne and that drinking more water would improve the quality of their skin. The study also found that some beliefs that were previously popular about acne were no longer viewed as true, including the idea that tanning improves the appearance of acne.

揥hat this survey and these studies have shown is that substantial differences still exist between popular belief and scientific support, yet this does not change the way patients attempt to care for their acne,?stated by a doctor. 揑t is important for anyone who is affected by acne to seek the help of a dermatologist who can diagnose and provide treatment options that are specific to the patient抯 skin type to effectively address the condition.?
Headquartered in Schaumburg, Ill., the American Academy of Dermatology (Academy), founded in 1938, is the largest, most influential, and most representative of all dermatologic associations. With a membership of more than 14,000 physicians worldwide, the Academy is committed to: advancing the diagnosis and medical, surgical and cosmetic treatment of the skin, hair and nails; advocating high standards in clinical practice, education, and research in dermatology; and supporting and enhancing patient care for a lifetime of healthier skin, hair and nails.

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Removing Acne Scars And Medical Insurance

2011-09-22T18:59:00.000-07:00

The actions required in removing acne scars can be expensive. Depending on the severity and amount of scarring, multiple treatments may be needed in order to effectively minimize the lasting effects of acne. The problem that many sufferers face is finding a way to pay for removing acne scars if their medical insurance does not cover the cost of treatment.

Because removing acne scars may be considered, by some insurance providers, as a cosmetic procedure, it may be difficult to get an approval. If you are considering a procedure that will aid in removing acne scars, the best way to learn if your medical insurance covers this type of treatment is to review your policy. Whether your insurance is provided through your employer or you obtained it directly from an insurance provider, you should have a detailed overview of your coverage. Many providers do not cover the cost of cosmetic treatments and/or surgeries, which are often deemed as cosmetic or plastic surgery. If you still have questions after reviewing your policy, call your insurance agent to inquire about coverage.

If coverage is in question, it may help to have your physician provide a written recommendation to your insurance company. This letter should include the physician抯 name, contact information and his/her determination and recommendation regarding treatment to help in removing acne scars. Once this letter is submitted to your insurance company, a response should be given within 30 days. This can either be to the physician directly or to you, but the insurance company will reply with an acceptance or denial.

In the event that you request for medical insurance coverage relating to removing acne scars is denied, there may still be other options. For instance, if your condition warrants laser surgery for removing acne scars, the hospital may offer a payment plan to help cover the cost of the procedure. Many hospitals provide this type of financing to help their patient抯 afford treatment that would otherwise be unavailable to them due to lack of medical insurance. In order to be granted a payment plan, you would have to first determine whether or not one is available. This can be found at the hospital抯 billing office. If payment plans are available, your physician would have to determine a total cost for removing acne scars and provide it to the billing office. Following the procedure, the hospital would issue a bill and, if you are signed up on a payment plan, would give you the opportunity to make low monthly payments.

The information in this article is intended for informational purposes only. It should not be used in place of, or in conjunction with, professional medical advice. Prior to beginning any attempt at removing acne scars, individuals should consult their dermatologist for proper diagnosis and/or treatment.

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Top Five Acne Remedies

2011-09-22T15:27:00.000-07:00

Many people are concerned about products to remove acne, yet perhaps the more important factor to consider is prevention. After all, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. So, here are five of the basic but most important ways in order to treat and prevent acne build up.

1. Cleaning

Washing away the outside layer of the skin with natural oils is not really helpful preventing or curing acne, or pimple for other people, for it develops under the skin. Although it's a belief the people develop acne due to the fact that they don't cleanse their skin thoroughly. For everyone's information, washing the skin too much can cause irritation and produces more whiteheads and blackheads that turn into pimples after being infected. Gentle washing is only needed. Use mild soaps or cleanser, an example is Cetaphil or acne bars. Another good sample is Neutrogena product that washes acne.

2. Exfoliating

It is also important to exfoliate; this helps remove the dead skin cells, to maintain a healthy and glowing skin. A mild cleanser will help exfoliate the face after washing. Scrubbing will also help exfoliate the face, which can be done once or twice a week. This procedure will aid in reducing dead layers skin cells that clog the pores, reason why more pimples or acne.

3. Keeping the skin Clear

- Make sure that all cosmetics such as powder, lotion, blush on, foundation, and even sunscreen are oil free

- Complex 15 is oil free moisturizer that helps avoid dry skin

- Get in the habit of using oil-free lotions

- Get rid of hair chemicals such as gels or hair cream

- Always watch for labels with the term non-comedogenic, which means they don't cause pores to be clogged

4. Proven Chemicals

Benzoyl Peroxide

This eliminates the bacteria that worsens acne and it also unplugs oil secretions and helps pimples or acne to heal. This can be found in many over-the-counter acne treatments. Start traditionalistically with a five percent moisturizer once everyday like after washing the face before going to bed. After a week, make it twice everyday if there are no other medications being taken or used. If the acne is not yet healed after four to six weeks, try a ten per cent mixture. This can be bought over-the-counter, however, there is a need to seek for a doctor's prescription. Just be sure to request for a real form: the pharmacist can be asked which can be bought over-the-counter or which needs prescription.

Antibiotics

These are available only if there's a doctor's recommendation. Antibiotics are very helpful aid for pimples or acne that is already swelling and red and usually have pus, or for if it not those not anymore being treated with medications as expected. These antibiotics eliminate the bacteria, which develop to whiteheads. Make it a point to follow the doctor's recommended dosage and always take the antibiotic pills with enough amount of water. Some of these bacteria killing medicines may also increase the skin's sensitivity to the sun, for this use sunscreen when going out to prevent any sunburn.

Accutane

Accutane are antibiotics that are available only under a doctor's order and recommendation. Accutane is a very optimized pill that is intended for those with deep scars, or pimples that can no longer be treated by other medications or antibiotics. Blood test is taken every now and then when using Accutane as medication, as this can affect the levels blood cell and blood count. For women, the physician, possibly an obstetrician-gynecologist may require the intake of birth control pills prior to prescribing the Accutane. Extra caution is really taken into consideration, as it can be very harmful to to pregnant women. However, until this time some physicians are not prescribing Accutane.

5. Treatment Information

The Treatment can take some time which often takes six to eight weeks for the pimple to heal after there will be another start of treatment. Some medications can cause acne to get even bigger or redder before it gets well, there are times when these could have pus too. If the acne still has not welled after several medications with other drugs, the doctor may suggest that the patient take an oral medicine. Doctors recommend this retinoid as a last treatment, due to its serious effects and it is also very expensive. Sometimes women are asked to take birth control pills as to help them control acne especially in women who mood swings even before their menstruations start.

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Understanding Acne in Puberty Stage

2011-09-22T12:16:00.000-07:00

Puberty acne develops from a few simple steps. First, teenage acne occurs when for some unknown reason or combination of reasons, hair follicles, also known as pores, become blocked. Although the exact combination of reasons that pores become clogged may not be fully known, many contributing elements for teenagers and adults alike can include:

* genetics (whether or not there is a history of acne problems and if so, to what extent)
* hormones
* dietary and vitamin make up (or lack of /deficiency)
* stress related factors

Other denominators in the development of puberty acne could include factors like how your body normally rids itself of its dead skin cells. And influences that may be working against this regularity. For example, climate and other environmental factors, overall body health at the time of the outbreak, and your hormones and their effect on your own body's sebum production (especially for females).

Second, the normal dead skin cells that combine with your body's natural sebum oil as it drains through the skin's surface become clogged in these blocked pores. This substance becomes somewhat sticky, further clogging the passageway.

Third, bacteria begins to grow around these clogged areas. As a normal reaction, your body's white blood cells attack the bacteria, fighting it and pushing it out of the body.

And forth, the resulting growths during this 14-day to 21-day battle are called microcomedones. Microcomedones turn into comedones, commonly referred to as blemishes, pimples or acne.

There are basically four types of puberty acne: whiteheads, blackheads, pimples and nodules.

Whiteheads are when the sebum (oil) and resulting bacteria are trapped below the skin's surface and you can actually see a white head appear above (or near popping out of) the skin.

Blackheads are when the sebum and resulting bacteria are only partially trapped, slowly draining out the surface and turning black because of your skin's melanin or pigmentation. In the absence of either white or blackhead are generally (but not always) smaller pimples. And the often deeper, boil-like lesions are referred to as nodules.

All forms of puberty acne can be mild, moderate or severe. Typically, mild puberty acne is visible in the form of whiteheads and blackheads, sometimes pimples.

With moderate puberty acne, more pimples and pustules are present on the face, some may appear on the back or chest.

And with severe puberty acne, many nodules develop, often large and sore, over parts of the face, back, chest and other body areas. This type of acne can lead to scarring.

Actually, lesser cases of puberty acne have been followed by scarring. So for those with possible nodular acne, seeking advice from a healthcare provider as soon as possible is recommended.

A gender issue to note is that males more often have the severe form of acne rather than females, due to their hormones. And the areas where they tend to break out most frequently are unfortunately more difficult to treat, the chest and back.

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Free Auto Blogger Report

2011-09-22T10:17:00.005-07:00
Fri 01:14 AM | Blog Loaded.Fri 01:19 AM | Starting Blog...Fri 01:19 AM | Downloading 1 feed...Fri 01:19 AM | Checking cache and filters...Fri 01:19 AM | Posting 10 entries...Fri 01:19 AM | Could not post item "Social Bookmarking Tips", Reason: Could not post: (-1)Fri 01:19 AM | Could not post item "Yahoo Small Business - A Review", Reason: Could not post: (-1)Fri 01:19 AM | Could not post item "Make Money Taking Surveys", Reason: Could not post: (-1)Fri 01:19 AM | Done! Feed items posted: 2. Ads posted: 0.Fri 01:19 AM | Feed items skipped: 5 (free version).Fri 01:19 AM | Purchase the PRO version at www.freeautoblogger.com
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Easy to Understand Guidelines For a Good Website Design

2011-09-22T10:17:00.003-07:00
Websites are created as a way of communicating with the clients that the companies want to target For every website there are things that need to be advertised so it could be a product or services Therefore, it is important that before website developers try to load their newly created pages, technical terms and jargons are minimized in order not to confuse their clients...
Read More... [Source: Internet Articles At Isnare.com - Posted by FreeAutoBlogger]

Become A Better Internet Marketing Advisor By Employing A Solid Internet Marketing Development Cycle

2011-09-22T10:17:00.001-07:00
Let?s get this one thing out of the way: the only reason you aren?t making a good living as an internet marketing advisor is because you don?t have a solid internet marketing strategy in placeDo you have entrepreneur friends who are running a successful business Try asking them how you could establish a successful business without doing any planning whatsoever, and they?ll tell you that 1) it simply isn?t possible and 2) please don?t make them laugh suddenly out of nowhere...
Read More... [Source: Internet Articles At Isnare.com - Posted by FreeAutoBlogger]

Scalp Acne Problems - A How-To Guide

2011-09-22T10:05:00.000-07:00

Scalp acne, the mildest form of which is also known as scalp folliculitis, occurs more frequently than most people realize. Just about everyone knows what acne is and that it commonly breaks out on the face, chest, arms and on the back. But acne also appears on other parts of the body as well, and unless you're someone with acne in one of these 'other' areas, you may not have realized this.

Scalp acne and those similar to it, are often triggered during periods of great stress. This irritating scalp condition usually develops when the scalp becomes oilier than usual, for example when the hair isn't washed as frequently or when hair care products that contain a considerable amount of oil are used.

Scalp acne can be very itchy and therefore makes it very difficult for those who have it to leave it alone. In its mildest form, the pustules are small, crusty, and they're sore. They appear mainly on the upper forehead at the hairline. A person can have just a few pustules or there can be many.

A more severe form of scalp acne called acne necrotica miliaris is characterized by inflamed larger papules with black-colored crusts. This form of acne can leave behind scars that resemble those resulting from Chicken Pox. There is an even more severe form of scalp acne that primarily affects adult African-American men, but can actually affect anybody, regardless of race or sex. This extremely rare condition is a combination of large cysts and smaller pustules and papules that grow to be very large.

Treatment for Scalp Acne

Mild forms of scalp acne can be treated the way most other acne is treated. Keep the affected area clean by using a product that contains salicylic acid. Remember though that these products can cause excessive dryness so use only on affected areas. For better control, apply using a cotton wool or ball.

Since oily hair is a contributing factor to scalp acne, it is imperative to use shampoo that's formulated for oily hair. Hair care products designed specially to treat seborrhea have also been used with reasonable success. And since many people use more than just shampoo on their hair, it's a good idea to check the labels on all hair care products and make changes as necessary.

Never attempt to treat the more severe forms of scalp acne without consulting a dermatologist or doctor first.

One thing that should not be used to treat scalp acne is any product that contains benzoyl peroxide. That's because when peroxide comes into contact with hair, it can change the color of the hair and result in a 'less-than-desirable' look! Those who have chemically-textured hair (for example those with perms) or color-treated hair are most prone to hair trouble when benzoyl peroxide comes into contact with hair.

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Homemade Acne Treatments - Are They Really Working?

2011-09-22T07:41:00.000-07:00

Treatments for acne can begin from your kitchen. There are several vegetables and fruits which can be used to cure acne.

Most people are not convinced about the effectiveness of the homemade acne treatments. But if you check the ingredients of popular medicines for acne you will find that most of them consist of substances found in common vegetables and fruits. Acne is the result of the lack of vital vitamins like Vitamin E, Vitamin A and Pantothenic Acid. Deficiency in these vitamins leads to the growth of bacteria that clogs the skin oil. This in turn leads to acne. Most of the medicines try to replenish the essential vitamins, which can be easily got by filling your diet with vegetable and fruits containing those vitamins.

Keeping the skin clean is an important part in the acne treatment. Cleaning the skin with lemon is an effective acne treatment. Lemon is used for several purposes mainly due to the presence of citric acid. The citric acid has several essential properties required to kill the harmful bacteria. Rub lemon on your skin before going to sleep and you will find a clear skin in the morning. Similarly, you can get rid of acne scars by applying tomato slice. Applying garlic on the spots is another effective homemade acne treatment. Mint juice also can remove skin lesions and scars.

Other homemade acne treatments include applying the paste of orange peels. This paste cleans the skin and fights harmful bacteria. Application of raw papayas can also bring relief to acne. Daily application of tea tree oil, coconut oil, lavender oil and jojoba oil before bathing for an hour can reduce acne. Including large amount of fruits and vegetables in the diet and drinking lot of water are part of acne treatment.

The success of homemade acne treatments depends on the dedication shown by the person. Simply rubbing lemon or tomato for a day will not cure acne. All home made acne treatments should be strictly followed for over a period of time.

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How To Pay For Expensive Acne Treatments

2011-09-22T05:17:00.000-07:00

With all of the doctor visits, possible procedures and medications, acne treatments can be very expensive. For those who have health insurance, it may or may not be covered in your policy. Because acne treatments may be considered as cosmetic, some health insurance companies may not cover the costs associated with it抯 treatment. The best way to find out, however, is to review your health insurance policy or call your local agent for more information. Many individuals, for various reasons, do not have health insurance and they are often the ones who are most concerns with the related costs. Whether you do or do not have health insurance, there are ways to pay for expensive acne treatments if you find yourself carrying the full financial responsibility.

An increasing number of hospitals and/or private practice physicians offer a convenient payment plan, which allows their patients to set up a scheduled payment system for their high-cost acne treatments. This doesn抰 usually require a credit check and is not a line of credit, but is rather a way of offering patients a convenience of gradually payment for services after they have been rendered. This is a privilege that is not available everywhere, but is rapidly catching on. In order to find out if your physician offers this type of plan for acne treatments, check with the billing office. There will typically be a schedule set up for payments and it is important not to miss it. The reason is because, if payments are missed, the physician or medical care facility may revoke your plan and demand payment in full. In addition, it isn抰 likely that you would be granted this same privilege if payments for acne treatments are late or collection efforts must be pursued.

If acne is extreme and neither of the above mentioned financial scenarios are possible, consider selling some of your unwanted items around the house at online auctions, yard sales, flea markets, etc. These are all terrific ways to earn some extra money, which can quickly add up and help you to pay for expensive acne treatments.

This article is to be used for informational purposes only. The information contained herein is not intended to be used in place of, or in conjunction with, professional medical advice regarding the use of acne treatments. Prior to beginning any treatment regimen, the patient must consult a licensed medical doctor or dermatologist for advice and/or to determine the best course of action for his/her individual situation.

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Taking Birth Control Pills to Fight Acne

2011-09-22T00:59:00.000-07:00

Anybody who抯 ever had a run-in with acne probably knows that there抯 a vast array of products out there that all claim to get rid of zits fast and effectively. Unfortunately, there抯 just not that one miracle product out there that will cure everybody抯 acne ailments. More often than not, a person who suffers from acne has to try and test out a variety of products before they find anything that really works with them. It can be a long and frustrating road to travel down at times.

There are really a lot of factors when it comes to determining what causes acne in certain people. Cleanliness of the skin is one factor that is important but not the main cause. When experiencing acne breakouts, a clean, well moisturized face is essential to help prevent further attacks, but having a completely clean face at all times does not guarantee that it will be free of acne for all of that time. Diet is another widely ignored factor that is important when it comes to a clear complexion. The foods and drink a person consumes does have a direct effect on what is secreted through the skin. If someone has a diet that is high in fat, sugars, and preservatives, they have a much greater chance of experiencing acne breakouts.

Another major factor that causes acne is an imbalance of hormones in the human body. Hormonal imbalances that cause acne in humans are primarily because of the bodies over or under production of sebum. Sebum is a substance found in the sebaceous glands that the body normally produces to lubricate and protect the skin from the environment. When there is either too much or too little of this sebum being produced, the pores and hair follicles can become dry and irritated, leading to acne breakouts. Acne problems happen for women when there is either an overproduction of androgens or they are overly sensitive to the body抯 natural level of those androgens. Another imbalance can be an underproduction of estrogen; the chemical found in females that counteracts the effects of androgens. Birth control pills contain two chemicals- estrogen and progestin, which are known agents in maintaining a normal hormonal balance.

Progestin is a pill that contains a synthetic version of the hormone progesterone. It is both helpful and harmful when it comes to acne on the skin. It is beneficial in that it bonds with the progesterone to maintain normal sebum production but is also known to cause the body to retain more water than usual, which can lead to bloating and blocked pores and hair follicles. The birth control pill helps to prevent excess androgen formation by reducing the amount found in the bloodstream and blocking them from the receptors or the sebaceous glands. This is why birth control pills are so effective in helping to prevent acne in so many women.

Just like acne products, there are a multitude of birth control pills that are produced and manufactured for a variety of physical body types. In order to get on birth control pills, a woman must first consult a physician in order to find out what will be the best type for her personal needs. Pills come in a variety of brand names and ingredients and range in a number of strengths. A physician will be the most helpful in determining which is the appropriate type. If you are a woman who is suffering from acne, you may benefit from looking into the use of contraceptive pills to help fight off future acne breakouts.

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How Your Diet And Acne Condition Are Related?

2011-09-21T22:56:00.000-07:00

What you are is what you eat! Whether this statement holds good in the case of acne has been a topic which has been under rigorous research. Some people believe that certain foods cause acne while others think vice versa. But, it is very much possible that acne may be the result of food allergies in some cases.

In such cases, the prevalent notion is that skin acts as an elimination organ. When you eat a food that you are allergic to, a toxic reaction occurs which leads the immune system of your body to set up defenses against it. Thereafter, the body starts expelling out the toxins from the food leading to inflammation on the skin in the form of papules and pustules.

According to a research published in December 2002 issues of Archives of Dermatology, certain high-glycemic foods cause acne. These food stuffs lead to high production of insulin in the body, which raises the male hormones. As an effect of rising hormones, there is excess production of sebum in the body which ultimately leads to clogging of pores thereby causing acne. Foods such as grains, milk, processed food, bread, french fries and potato chips are the main culprits in this case.

The experts suggest a switch over to a lower-glycemic diet. A lower-glycemic diet would contain the following:

1. Cereals that contain bran, barley and oats
2. A lot of fresh vegetables and fruits
3. Lots of water, herbal teas and vegetable juices

And a lower-glycemic diet would not contain the following:

1. Walnuts, almonds, Brazil nuts, and filberts
2. Large amount of dairy products and milk
3. Sodas and other aerated drinks
4. Potatoes

Vitamin B5 is considered to be a very important part of a nutrient rich diet. It is commonly found in foods such as pork, beef, chicken, eggs, saltwater fish, potatoes, wheat and fresh vegetables. The variety of foods is large, but the problem is that 50 % of the vitamin is lost during milling of grains and sadly, the average American diet lacks in fresh vegetables. Diet may not be the particular cause of acne and rosacea but can obviously help in the prevention and elimination of the same. Hot and damp foods such as sugary cakes, cookies, sweets, alcohol, chocolate, fried and greasy food, dairy products, peanuts, coconut products, fats and oils, generally trigger acne.

The link may not be direct but it is always advisable to stop the intake of these believed-to-be acne causing foods. A healthy and well-balanced diet keeps your body healthy and the health inside radiates outside on your skin.

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Muscle and Fitness Go Hand in Hand

2011-09-21T18:28:00.000-07:00

Believe it or not, there is a formula to muscle and fitness. I know that sometimes the fitness industry can be quite confusing. As you start your search for your fitness solution, you are flooded and bombarded by all of the "quickies". If you aren't familiar with this term in reference to fitness, it is probably because I started using it myself. I use it in reference to anyone that is looking for a quick sale, and have no care for truly helping their customer get the muscle and fitness solution that they want. I am going to help you to find some focus and direction to guide yourself through the storm to your muscle and fitness potential.

Muscle and fitness is the answer to your problem. So, you are expecting me to go into how the Muscle and Fitness magazine can give you the information, tips, and tricks to turn your body around, right? Wrong. I can truthfully say that I am a subscriber to Muscle and Fitness magazine. I find Muscle and Fitness to be one of the top magazines to use as a source for the latest and greatest fitness information, and exercise techniques that give the best and fastest results. However, this is not the muscle and fitness that I am speaking of.

What muscle and fitness am I speaking of then? I am talking about your muscle, and your fitness. The greatest contributor to your body's fitness levels or lack thereof is your body's muscle content. The higher percentage of muscle mass that is present in your body, the more calories that you will burn in a day. The same can be said of having a lower percentage of muscle mass causing you to burn less calories. The truth of the matter is that, with a high percentage of muscle mass, you will burn more calories than a person of the same body size and weight, with a lower muscle mass, while you are both sitting on the couch. Your muscle and fitness are dependent upon your muscle density.

A higher percentage of muscle mass doesn't mean bigger. The important thing that you should remember about your muscle and fitness is that muscle tissue's mass is dependent upon its density. An individual, who works out with low to moderate weight but with high repetitions, will have leaner and denser muscle tissue than someone that solely works out with high weight and low repetitions. In fact, bodybuilders will actually go back and forth between the two training techniques to ensure that they don't lose muscle density in their pursuit to gain size.

Want some proof? Some of the best examples that I can give to you to prove how your muscle and fitness are tied together, are easy for me to give to you. They are extremely high profile, which makes my job that much easier. Look at any retired NFL athlete or body builder, who fails to maintain a steady conditioning and workout routine to maintain their muscle and fitness. You immediately will notice that these individuals' muscle and fitness degrade, especially in the stomach region. This is solely due to the fact that they have not kept up with the intense physical training which maintained a high muscle density during their careers. Their muscle tissue has slowly lost its potent density due to the decrease in demand. Their muscle and fitness changes are greater than most due to the large difference between training levels at the peak of the careers and their retirement.

What should you do about your muscle and fitness? Well, the best way to ensure the greatest potential to your muscle and fitness, you should exercise regularly. I believe in a good mixture of cardiovascular exercise, weight and resistance training, and body training. Body training consists of calf-raises, push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, and flutter-kicks. My cardiovascular routine is a mixture of swimming, running, and the hill program on the exercise bike at the gym. My weight training routines are very versatile, doing three exercises for each major muscle group, and two muscle groups per day. My fitness tuning techniques are available at my free membership website listed below. Utilize all of my free information to tune your body to its fullest muscle and fitness potential.

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Proper Acne Medication

2011-09-21T18:14:00.000-07:00

It usually strikes in plainly visible locations such as the face, neck, chest and back. Acne can be caused by a number of factors such as contact with an oily substance, use of certain medication, steroids, or the secretion of certain hormones. Over ninety percent of acne patients respond to treatment, although the treatment may need to be continued for months or even years. Here are a few natural remedies that you can use to cure acne.

What Causes Acne?
As mentioned above, acne can be caused by a number of factors. Common causes of acne include contact with an oily substance such as mineral oil, vegetable oil, or petroleum and the use of certain medication such as steroids or the contraceptive pill. However, acne is most often caused by the secretion of androgens, or sex hormones that are initially secreted at the onset of puberty. Androgens are male hormones but they are secreted by females as well. They stimulate the production of oil from the skin's oil glands. When these oil glands become overactive and the exit from the gland is blocked, oil builds up in the gland and they begin to swell. This is how acne forms. A bacteria called Propionibacterium acnes normally colonizes this swollen gland causing the development of inflammation and pus. In particularly severe cases, the glands may burst into the skin and produce cysts. Recently health practitioners are associating acne with a fungus on the face. A clogged colon can also contribute to acne. We recommend using a colon cleanser like Oxy-Powder to keep the bowel clean.

How Can I Cure Acne?
Home Remedies:
旳 non-oily face wash that contains tea tree oil or echinacea can help to reduce the incidence of acne breakouts. Wash your face twice a day in the morning and evenings and rinse thoroughly with warm purified water.
旳void oily and chemically ridden cosmetics or any facial products that contain socetyl stearate, isopropyl isostearate, isopropyl palmitate, isopropyl myristate, and sodium chloride, parabens as these ingredients can cause acne.
旼ive dry skin extra care, being sure to wash and rinse your face thoroughly and using products especially made for dry skin.
昇atural astringent cleansers work to remove the oil buildup that may become blocked in the skin's glands. These products may cause dryness, itching, and redness, so be sure to use them only on problem areas.
昈xy-Skin?is also a very effective natural remedy for the elimination of acne.

Herbal Remedies: Herbs such as chamomile, lavender, juniper, bergamot, dandelion root, and burdock root can be used to reduce toxicity and improve the overall condition of the skin. Echinacea and poke root are often used for their anti-inflammatory properties and red clover may be beneficial for its estrogenic action. Witch hazel has excellent astringent properties and may be very effective on acne. Here are a few natural herbal recipes to cure acne.

旵ombine ground ginger with milk and apply to the affected area.
昅ake a paste of honey and cinnamon and apply to the affected area at night. In the morning, wash this paste with warm water. Continue for one-two weeks.
昅ix lemon juice with cinnamon and apply to acne
昅ix ground orange peel with water to form a paste and apply to the affected spots. Wash with warm water after twenty to thirty minutes.
昍ub fresh garlic on acne at frequent intervals to acne.
昒se the juice of raw papaya to relieve swelling acne.
昅ake a paste of salt and vinegar and wash off after twenty to thirty minutes.
昍ub fresh mint juice over acne.
昅ake a paste of turmeric and vinegar and apply to acne. Rinse with lukewarm water after twenty to thirty minutes.
旸rink wheat grass juice to prevent and cure acne.
旳pply a poultice of ground sesame seeds and water on acne to reduce inflammation.

Complementary Treatment

旳cupuncture: Stagnant of Chi in the channels of the face is said to be the cause of acne. Acupuncture performed on these points of the face may help relieve acne.
旽omeopathy: For patients with pustules and blind boils, especially on the face, neck, and back, may be helped by Kali brom. Selenium is often used for acne sufferers with oily skin, blackheads, and pustules.

Conventional Treatment- These treatmens we do not recommend.

Medication: Conventional acne medications may be topical- applied directly to the skin- or they may be systemic- taken internally. Medications include benzoyl peroxide, retinoic acid, steroids, antibiotics, oral contraceptives, and isotretinoin (Accutane.)

Therapeutic Injections: In severe cases of acne where cysts form and scars have developed, doctors have had some success with injecting steroids directly into the cyst to resolve the cysts and diminish the appearance of scars.

Surgery: In moderate to severe cases of acne, doctors may use surgery to open up the blemishes and remove blackheads and whiteheads. Unlike medication treatments, the effects of acne surgery are usually more immediate.

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Science Of Acne In Layman's Terms

2011-09-21T12:14:00.000-07:00

In a nutshell, a few simple steps occur that cause skin blemishes. First, acne occurs when for some unknown reason or combination of reasons, hair follicles, also known as pores, become blocked. Although the exact combination of reasons that pores become clogged may not be fully known, many contributing elements for teenagers and adults alike can include; genetics (whether or not there is a history of acne problems and if so, to what extent), hormones, dietary and vitamin make up (or lack of /deficiency) and stress related factors. Other denominators could include factors like how your body normally rids itself of its dead skin cells and influences that may be working against this regularity (for example climate and other environmental forces or overall body health at the time) and your hormones and their effect on your own body's sebum production (especially for females).

Second, the normal dead skin cells that combine with your body's natural sebum oil as it drains through the skin's surface become clogged in these blocked pores. This substance becomes somewhat sticky, further clogging the passageway.

Third, bacteria begins to grow around these clogged areas. As a normal reaction your, your body's white blood cells attack the bacteria, fighting it and pushing it out of the body.

And forth, the resulting growths during this 14-day to 21-day battle are called microcomedones. Microcomedones turn into comedones, commonly referred to as blemishes, pimples or acne.

There are basically four types of acne; whiteheads, blackheads, pimples and nodules. Whiteheads are when the sebum (oil) and resulting bacteria are trapped below the skin誷 surface and you can actually see a white head appear above (or near popping out of) the skin. Blackheads are when the sebum and resulting bacteria are only partially trapped, slowly draining out the surface and turning black because of your skin誷 melanin or pigmentation. In the absence of either white or blackhead are generally (but not always) smaller pimples. And the often deeper, boil-like lesions are referred to as nodules.

All forms of acne can be mild, moderate or severe. Typically, mild acne is visible in the form of whiteheads and blackheads, sometimes pimples. With moderate acne, more pimples and pustules are present on the face, some may appear on the back or chest. And with severe acne, many nodules develop, often large and sore, over parts of the face, back, chest and other body areas. This type of acne can lead to scarring. Actually, lesser cases of acne have been followed by scarring. So for those with possible nodular acne, seeking advice from a healthcare provider as soon as possible is recommended.

A gender issue to note is that males more often have the severe form of acne rather than females, due to their hormones. And the areas where they tend to break out most frequently are unfortunately more difficult to treat, the chest and back.

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Skin Antioxidat Treatment And Acne Cure

2011-09-21T09:49:00.000-07:00

Skin Antioxidat Treatment And Acne Cure

Acne is induced from imbalances and impurities in the body, and that's why we treat the complication an internal cleansing

coarse of execution that goes right to the source and fights acne prior to it even begins. Most of the Acne Cure medicine

prerogative produce antioxidents that can ease eliminate the free radicals that are dangerous to skin and promote infections.

It as well fights inflammation, to reduce redness.

If you have any kind of acne, much inordinately severe acne, there exists nothing you prerogative find that works better to

clear your complexion, essencially all-natural and scientifically formulated to treat acne from the inside-out. basically

everybody has to manage with acne from time to time. It's not because we eat hot and dry foods. It's not because we do not

wash our face enough. In deed, cleaning as well vigorously can produce acne worse!

The basic of acne cure medicine with following immediate results that :-
i ) Works for adults & teenagers distress from facial or body acne
ii) Eliminates spots, pimples, redness, puss, blackheads & whiteheads
iii) Natural acne medication formula with no side effects
iv) Fast and effective acne cure from the inside out
v) Dermatologist Recommended with Guaranteed Results
vi) And it works to heal damaged skin, naturally!

Fair like you, thousands of general public from all across the globe grieve from this debilitating disorder, and just like

you they've tried every single thing with little or even no results. experienced that topical chemicals do not act and can

even attempt detriment and completely with long run side effects! Act now to observe better to yourself and the People You

care about!

Dangers of Prescribed Medications for acne

i) Even though you will notice short term results
ii) Produce you feel ill.
iii) Even more disturbing is that the FDA warns that can cause depression, liver damage and birth defects, along with an

extended list of more possible side effects.
iv) Patients of this chemical prescription must be under a dermatologist's supervision for the 5-month course of coarse of

action.

Choose wisely and know about dangerous of Acne Prescribed Medications which with no side effects and you also do not require

to have a dermatologists supervision.

http://acne-product.natural-herbal-essence.com/ By Jasmine Yap

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The Whole Truth About Fading Acne Scars

2011-09-21T05:41:00.000-07:00

Unsightly scars that appear on the face are usually the result of severe acne. Cystic acne or common acne that has ruptured are the main causes. It is a common problem that most people desire to have corrected as soon as their acne finally clears up. There is the option to have a procedure done in a doctor's office to fade acne scars, as well as things you can do yourself at home.

Some people would be pleased with the appearance of their face if only they could just find a way to fade their acne scars. These are usually attention-drawing red or purple and are hard to cover up. Since scars are permanent, it is desirable to find a way to lessen their appearance. There are over-the-counter creams that can gradually fade acne scars. Mederma is available without prescription and even offers a money-back guarantee. It doesn't claim to completely rid your face of scars, but it will visibly fade them. Mederma is expensive but one tube can go a long way. And if the scar fades then repeated usage is not necessary. If the scar is indented, the appearance of the scar is mainly caused by the shadow. The way this is treated it through basic collagen injections.

There are skin resurfacing treatments available that can reduce the visibility of acne scars. They usually require more than one visit and could become expensive. The common procedures done to fade acne scars are dermabrasion and laser treatment. The long-term safety of laser treatment is uncertain so there has been controversy and debate surrounding this procedure. Dermabrasion is safe but you will have to endure recovery afterwards.

Daily exfoliation and application of Vitamin E oil is an effective way to fade acne scars cheaply at home. Most people do not want to spend a lot of money on something cosmetic and this is a very safe way. The longer the scar has been present, the more difficult it will be to alter its appearance. It may be possible to fade acne scars at home if they are mild. Lemon juice has been a success in fading scars for many people. The citric acid that it contains help to remove dead skin cells, increase skin elasticity, and help new cell growth. It could be irritating for people with sensitive skin but it will most likely fade the scars. Aloe Vera is also known for its healing ability and could also help to fade scars. The best aloe to use is determined by how much of it is combined with inactive ingredients that can dilute the healing properties.

An exfoliating serum that you can purchase is the Bliss Sleeping Pill Serum. It uses amino acids to exfoliate you skin and lighten dark scars. Another over-the-counter way to fade acne scars is with a product called Advance Complex Fade Gel. It is used for treatment of dark spots, such as scars, and is specially formulated for people with dark skin. It also contains sunscreen to keep the dark spots from ever coming back.

Resource guide for natural acne treatment.

eClass on total acne treatment.

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Stop The Embarrassment - Treat Your Acne Rosacea Now

2011-09-21T02:43:00.000-07:00

Signs and Symptoms of Acne Rosacea

There are certain contrasts between acne rosacea and acne vulgaris. As you probably know, acne vulgaris is the most common form of acne which seems to start with the onset of puberty and is characterized by the formation of whiteheads and blackheads. Acne rosacea, on the other hand, usually makes its first appearance between the ages of 30 and 50, is confined to the face -- mostly the nose, cheeks, chin, forehead and eyelids -- and is not associated with overactive oil glands.

The lesions seen in acne rosacea consist of erythema, minute dilated blood vessels, papules and pustules. The color of the skin in the affected areas varies from bright to dull red, or it can even take on a purplish hue. At first the redness may last for just a few hours, but later as the condition progresses and recurrences continue, the color persists and can become permanent.

The hypertrophy of the sebaceous glands, especially on the nose, leads to thickening of the skin, increased visibility of the expanded follicles and an enlargement of the nose, so often associated with acne rosacea. Although most commonly seen in women, men have the most severe cases and are the ones that usually develop the disfiguring bulbous nose, known as rhinophyma. Oddly, sometimes rhinophyma is the only sign of the condition.

People suffering from acne rosacea come to realize what aggravates their particular outbreaks and avoid them, if possible. The most common stimulants are hot, spicy foods, hot beverages and alcohol. Exposure to the sun and to heat also seems to be aggravating factors.

Acne rosacea is not life-threatening, but it certainly does severely alter a person's appearance.

Complications Associated With Rosacea

There are only a few complications associated with acne rosacea. Sometimes, eye irritations can occur due to inflammation of the eyelashes or outer surface of the eyes. The membrane covering the lens (cornea) can become inflamed leading to impaired vision, but this rarely happens.

Treatment Options for Acne Rosacea

Topical and Oral Medication. There is no proven cure for rosacea since the exact cause of the disease is not known. Successful treatment is based on controlling the acne-like symptoms with the same topical and systemic medications used in treating regular acne.

The most effective treatment to date includes long term use of topical and oral antibiotics such as tetracycline which does seem to control the eruptions. The dosage of the antibiotic is slowly lowered to maintain control. In most cases, it can eventually be discontinued altogether without recurrence of the rosacea pimples. Of course, tetracycline should never be taken during pregnancy since the medication does affect the unborn child.

Laser and Surgery. Laser treatment has been successful in eliminating the enlarged facial blood vessels. This is a treatment that causes very little discomfort. Also, surgery can be used to remove the excess tissue associated with rhinophyma.

Other Treatment. The psychological and stress problems associated with acne rosacea should always be assessed and treated. The symptoms and severity are varied and can, at times, require the attention of a medical specialist.

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