Be stress free with Feng Shui

This is one of my published articles

Wouldn’t it be great to come home to a place where, as soon as you opened the door, you felt completely relaxed? In today’s hyper world, a soothing home is ultra-mandatory, as is replenishing the natural energy flow that is inside - and outside - all of us.

And what if it was a relaxing home that attracted prosperity and productivity? According to the rules of Feng Shui - the ancient and wildly popular Chinese decorating art - all this, and more, is possible. By carefully manipulating your environment with proper placement and balance, you can invite harmony, abundance and good fortune in, and stress and pressure out.

The Feng Shui Energy Grid

If you were to hire a Feng Shui decorator, he or she would divide your home into an energy grid (to let energy circulate freely), and maintain balance, in each of these steps, by doing the following:

1. In every place but the bathroom, position the largest, most central piece in the core, or center, of the room, i.e., under a fan. Heavy objects placed on the floor, in a key place, ground you. You need to trust your instinct on this placement; walk around and see what feels right. Nothing should be up against a corner or a wall. Let air circulate freely; you will not have anything tucked kitty-corner.

2. Do not allow clutter into your home. Not in the living room, not in the dining room, not in the bedroom - it interferes with romance - and certainly not in the kitchen. You simply can’t think clearly with clutter. In order to know what you have to work with, you need to have everything in its proper place, like an artist with a palette.

3. Use light in dramatic ways. Light is usually applied at eye level. Of course, the best light is sunlight. If you don’t have much light, use mirrors to reflect the light you do have, and add crystals to reflect additional light.

4. Replace sharp corners. Feng Shui practitioners do like to envision every room as a square or a triangle, but when it comes to furniture, these corners bear the term “poison arrows.” So what sort of table do you eat on? You might consider purchasing a round or oval table. In that way, there will be no interruption of the energy flow. (Remember: Feng Shui is about lessening stress, and promoting good vibes. There is, therefore, no fight for power, or exploiting vulnerability, such as might occur in a rectangular or box-like table, where someone is at the so-called “head” of the table.)

5. Decorate each room separately. Look at the area you are decorating from all angles. You want it to be balanced from every entry and exit point. Go in and out of the room a few times. Close the door, if there is one, to give yourself a fresh new perspective, then re-enter.

6. Change the color scheme of every single item in your room. All accessories should match. If you go for a soothing blue-green, don’t only do the rugs and couches. Do the artwork, the pillowcases, and the knick knacks.

7. Symbolic elements like earth, metal, water and wood are used in the decorating scheme to balance out a personality. If there is a need to balance out toughness, add “feminine” or soft energy, using curtains, plants, wood, and delicate sounds. Music that is kind to your mind, like nature sounds, is good, too. To induce a more “masculine” or busy energy, use metal. To tone down aggression, use a lovely ceramic (natural) bowl filled with water, or a waterfall statuette.

8. With problem areas - say, rooms you find yourself not entering, despite having decorated them very nicely - assess what you have, now, and what you can bring in, from another room. For instance, in a room with bright sunshine, like a sunroom, you’ve got bright light to work with. This would be a good place to spend weekend mornings, right? Or you might want to bring your laptop in, to finish a report in comfort and leisure.

Stress all around us

For more than 3 millenia, Chinese people have used the ancient wisdom of Feng Shui to bring greater prosperity to themselves and to their environment. In the modern era, we are constantly being bombarded by stress.

Whether you’re blowing your horn in a traffic jam, trying to wade through the spam emails clogging your inbox, taking unsolicited calls from salespeople on your home phone and that’s not even counting the everyday demands put upon you by your work, family, household chores and if you have a second to spare - then try to cram in some “leisure time”.

Is it any wonder your nerves are feeling jangled and frayed!

We are all guilty of trying to do too much throughout the day, constantly piling on the pressure with unfulfilled personal expectations just adding to stress of just getting through the day.

Stress Free Environment

You can restore your energy, recharge yourself and release tension by utilizing Feng Shui to create a home that is a sanctuary.

The principles of Feng Shui can help you create an environment to attract and direct positive energy. You may not be aware of how many different ways your physical space is affecting your well-being. Feng Shui provides help to identify the issues in your environment. If learning about Feng Shui sounds like one more project in an already busy life, consider this is one project which will lighten your load, provide relief and enhance your energy, rather than drain your internal resources or tire you out.

Making the pursuit of Feng Shui knowledge a worthwhile use of your time.

If your energy and your efforts are hindered, if your environment is increasing to your sense of restriction because the Feng Shui is out of balance, your stress only gets worse. Too much stress on the body has been demonstrated time and again as negative for your well being. The overproduction of stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline put extra strain on all the systems in your body. These hormones contribute to chronic conditions, like heart disease for example which plague society.

Excess stress wears down the immune system and leads to increased susceptibility colds and other illnesses.

One of the keys to restoring energy and relieving stress is getting enough rest. Using Feng Shui to arrange your bedroom will help you get the fitfull sleep you need. Feng Shui will guide you in selecting the right room to sleep in, the right placement of your bed and the elimination of unwanted items - like mirrors in the bedroom.

All of which will contribute to the quality of your rest and your waking energy.

Anxiety and stress trap and deplete energy. Correct use of Feng Shui optimizes energy. An environment which employs proper Feng Shui principles contributes to harmony, balance and well-being. The Chinese believe Feng Shui helps create the conditions whereby you can excel in your life and your relationships.

Restore Balance

Feng Shui restores your energy because the objective of Feng Shui is to allow you to reach balance with your surroundings. You will learn how to place items and arrange space so as to assist the flow of positive Chi energy. You will learn to leave negative energy at the door and fill your living space with good energy. With Feng Shui you can give yourself the positive pleasure of a harmonious, planned home environment designed to increase your well-being.

The Economics of Spam

The dark side of the Web

Spam is flooding the Internet with many copies of the same message, in an attempt to force the message on people who would not otherwise choose to receive it. Most spam is commercial advertising, often for dubious products, get-rich-quick schemes, or quasi-legal services. Spam costs the sender very little to send — most of the
costs are paid for by the recipient or the carriers rather than by the sender.

There are two main types of spam, and they have different effects on Internet users. Cancellable Usenet
spam is a single message sent to 20 or more Usenet newsgroups. (Through long experience, Usenet users have found that any message posted to so many newsgroups is often not relevant to most or all of them.) Usenet spam is aimed at
“lurkers”, people who read newsgroups but rarely or never post and give their address away. Usenet spam robs users of the utility of the newsgroups by overwhelming them with a barrage of advertising or other
irrelevant posts. Furthermore, Usenet spam subverts the ability of system administrators and owners to manage the topics they accept on their systems.

Email spam targets individual users with direct mail messages. Email spam lists are often created by scanning Usenet postings, stealing Internet mailing lists, or searching the Web for addresses. Email spams typically cost users money out-of-pocket to receive. Many people - anyone with measured phone service - read or receive their mail while the meter is running, so to speak. Spam costs them additional money. On top of that, it costs money for ISPs and online services to transmit spam, and these costs are transmitted directly to subscribers.

One particularly nasty variant of email spam is sending spam to mailing lists (public or private email
discussion forums.) Because many mailing lists limit activity to their subscribers, spammers will use automated tools to subscribe to as many mailing lists as possible, so that they can grab the lists of addresses, or use the
mailing list as a direct target for their attacks.

The Economics of Spam

In general, spam is the excessive distribution of messages to as many people as possible.

E-mail is the cheapest form of direct marketing (much cheaper than telemarketing or bulk junk mail through
the post). Andrew Leung (2003) observed observed that the response rate to spam is as low as 0.005% - only 50 in every million people respond to UBE.

But despite this very low response rate spam can make economic sense because the costs of dealing with it
are felt only by those recipients who don’t want it.

And CipherTrust (as reported by John Leyden) says that the response rates for pharmaceuticals is 200 per million, for

“Rolex” is 75 per million, and for porn is 50,000 per million! (Under 1 in 100 click-throughs actually yield a sale).

Fighting Spam

This is an example of negative externalities. Private costs and social costs diverge. Spammers are either unaware or don’t care about the costs they impose.

Anti-Spam Software

We can reduce spam in our
e-mail InBox by installing add-on anti-spam software on our workstation.
The marketplace offers a wide selection of such software that works in conjunction with our e-mail client software. 

The down side of anti-spam software is its expense and ongoing management effort.

A little Help from our ISP

One line of defence against spam can be our Internet Service Provider (ISP).  ISPs that filter spam
have happier customers and avoid clogging their e-mail servers with useless e-mail. 

E-Mail Client Filters

Most e-mail client software
comes with features designed to reduce spam in the InBox by searching for telltale signs in the contents of incoming spam.  For example, in Microsoft Outlook, we can set up various filters using the Tools > Rules Wizard function.

Since spam is rarely sent directly to us but to a list of undisclosed recipients, setting a filter that looks for specific words in the subject line is a good place to start.
More sophisticated filters can search for undesirable originators or selected properties of documents.

The limitations of the client e-mail filter approach are that the spammers are fully aware of the features of
the Rules Wizard and can send messages with misleading Subject lines and document characteristics that bypass our filters.  Also, these filters are not as sophisticated as the add-on software.

Our Behavior

Quite a different approach to controlling spam relies on disciplining our own behavior.  We must resist the temptation to participate in surveys, contests and “free” offers.  All of these ask us for information that greatly increases the
likelihood that we will be spammed.

Definite Don’ts

Don’t ever click on the
Remove button of spam e-mail.  Rather than removing yourself from a list, clicking the Remove button actually confirms that you exist.  Now the spammer will subject you to more spam.

Don’t ever, ever buy anything from a spammer.  Aside from the potential for fraud, we are only encouraging more spam.

Don’t complain.  In my experience there’s no satisfaction to be gained.  We’ll only raise the level of our irritation meter.  Move on.  Life is too short.

If it’s too good to be true…

Needless to say, nobody in Nigeria is really looking for a random person in the US just to do some money laundering.

No national lottery gives prizes to people who don’t buy tickets.

You don’t get refunds on products you haven’t bought.

And no bank or credit company will ever call you up and ask for your PIN. They know it already. They especially won’t call you and ask for your PIN if you had your wallet stolen.

Guns for Texas school’s teachers

Are we kidding here? If teachers carry guns supposedly for protection then they can kill too. Surely the answer is to take the guns out of the hands of the common man but then that will destroy an industry that lobbies so hard

Teachers in one part of the US state of Texas are to be allowed to carry concealed firearms when the new school term opens this month.

The school superintendent in Harrold district said the move was intended to protect staff and pupils should there be any gun attacks on its sole campus.

Teachers would have to undertake crisis management training first, the superintendent, David Thweatt, said.

In recent years the US has seen a number of fatal school shootings.

Trustees had approved the policy and parents had not objected, Mr Thweatt said.

“When the federal government started making schools gun-free zones, that’s when all of these shootings started,” he wrote on the Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s web site.

Mr Thweatt said he believed the school’s proximity to a large, busy motorway could make it a target.

“If something were to happen here, I’d much rather be calling a parent to tell them that their child is OK because we were able to protect them,” Mr Thweatt said.

Texas outlaws the presence of firearms at schools unless individual institutions allow them.

News article from BBC

A health insurance policy for HIV+ persons

Business Standard reports

In a first of its kind initiative that will bring respite to lakhs of people infected with HIV, an insurance company today rolled out a health policy, which will cover illness of such a patient due to his/her weak immune system.

Star Health and Allied Insurance Company, which launched its group medical insurance policy meant exclusively for HIV+ people, said the policy would cover hospitalisation expenses incurred on opportunistic illness acquired by an HIV+ person.

“The policy is unique not only in India but also in the world. It will cover hospitalisation expenses as a result of opportunistic diseases acquired by the HIV+ person,” Star Health and Allied Insurance Company Vice-President, Government and New Initiatives, Uday Chandran told PTI.

He, however, said that the policy would not cover any treatment cost for HIV and would also not cover conditions, which existed before enrolling into the policy.

“The policy does not cover any treatment for HIV, like Anti Retro-viral Therapy (ART), but would only cover illness acquired by such person because their immune system becomes weak,” he said.

Chandran was, however, quick to add that TB and gastroenteritis, the most common diseases affecting the HIV+ people would not be covered under the policy.

“We wanted the policy to remain as cost effective as possible for those persons. Had these two also been included, the premium would have gone up,” Chandran said.

On asked if the policy would take care of expenses once a HIV+ person is declared full blown AIDS patient, he said that in such cases, lump-sum amount is paid to the policy holder as per the sum insured by him or her.

Money management’s take on the matter

A bit of web research fond that South Africa offers such policies

Two small companies and at least three large companies in South Africa have introduced life cover for the HIV+ person. And although these policies were initially extremely expensive, it is clear that the industry has opened itself now to a greater understanding of this disease, in terms of treatment and prognosis. More and more, HIV is being perceived as a chronic, treatable disease, not unlike Diabetes Mellitus.

The United States of America does not allow HIV+ people to travel into their country stating contagious risk factors though it does have insurance cover for HIV+ people

UK does not offer health insurance to its citizens

On a very funny note from Digital Inspiration - www.labnol.com

The BBC World Service, in an effort to prevent transmission of HIV in India, has created a free ringtone for your mobile phone that chants like “condom, condom…”

The idea is to make the word ‘condom’ more socially acceptable here.

If this sounds a bit embarrassing or funny, hit the play button above or download the MP3 ringtone here (680 kb) - pretty creative and you may actually like it.

The project is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Dinner With The Namibians - Guest Olympic Post From Rohit Bhargava

When I boarded my flight to Beijing, I didn’t have a single ticket for any Olympic events and I wasn’t worried. To understand why, I need to tell you about my best day during the Summer Olympics in Sydney in 2000. I was living there and had one night where I was heading out to see a Handball match (by far my favourite Olympic sport, by the way). I got two tickets last minute and knew nothing about the sport. When I turned up, I was surprised to learn that the sport is basically a cross between soccer with your hands and water polo without the water. It is fast, challenging, and amazingly fun to watch. I discovered a new sport that day, but that wasn’t even the most memorable part of the day. Right after, I managed to get a table at famous S-shaped bar at the one hotel which was at Homebush Bay (the main Olympic Area) outside of Sydney. At the table, we sat with several athletes from different countries including an Eastern European gymnast and an African track and field athlete. I don’t remember their names, or even what we talked about … only that it was one of the most authentic and powerful Olympic experiences I could imagine. And it wasn’t about watching an athlete break a record or win a medal. It was a quiet moment at a shared table over a bottle of wine talking to two athletes who were considered the best in their countries in their respective sports.

So when I headed to Beijing, it was not with the goal of getting tickets to lots of events. It was about finding a moment where I could share a real story and an authentic Olympic moment with an athlete. Last night we had a chance to have a moment like that as part of a blogger meetup we organized over Twitter for a few local bloggers in Beijing and some of our athletes participating in the Lenovo program. We ended up having dinner with two Namibian cyclists, both of whom were competing for their country - Mannie in Mountain Biking and Eric Hoffman in Road Cycling. As we sat there and listened to their stories of making it past the trials and what it took to be the ones their country sent, it was easy to remember why the Olympics are the most powerful global event in the world.

Mannie competes on the second to last day of the Games, but talking to Eric was a great reminder of just how much every athlete trains and struggles just to be part of the Games, and how proud thousands of people none of us can see will be of them when they return home. Eric realized a personal best and finished 22 out of more than 100 of the finest road cyclers in the world after riding for over six hours. This is what the Olympics are really about. Not the hurdler who conquers personal tragedy and cancer of the kneecap to win the Gold. That’s the Hollywood version. The real life story is about the guy who beats his one biggest competitor to be the sole athlete in his sport that his country sends to Beijing. The one who misses marching in the Opening Ceremonies to rest so he can compete at 9am on the first day of the Olympics. The one who rides his bike in hot and humid weather for more than six hours among the best cyclists in the world. And the one who beats the odds to finish a personal best of 22nd so that he can go home a hero.

To read more real athlete’s stories, visit Lenovo’s Voices of the Olympic Games (link to http://summergames.lenovo.com)

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