Large Earthquake – PNG Area

Massive and very strong earthquake near Bougainville Island Papua New Guinea (April 19)

Last update: April 20, 2014 at 5:25 pm by By

 

Update April 20 : New Dawn news resource from Bougainville wrote on April 20 :
Reports from Torokina says that Tidal wave triggered by the 7.5 Earthquake which was felt all over Bougainville and including East New Britain just after 11.30 pm last night.
Reports from Buin and other centres said that they felt the strong earth quake and ran off their houses.
But report from Torokina said that the people were moving in land due to the rising seawater in their area.
A Officer from the Torokina District office PAUL TAKILA told New Dawn FM by phone that the tidal wave went straight inland after the Earthquake.
New Dawn FM managed to talk to the ABG President, DR. JOHN MOMIS who is spending his Easter weekend in Buin and was concerned at the fate of the people of Torokina.
Some reports from Saposa island also stated that the sea had risen some meters tonight.
In another reports New Damn added :
The people of Marowa and Koromokina on the beach at Torokina were shaken by the strong earthquake which occurred just after 11.30 pm last night and immediately after the tidal wave that also came into their villages.
According to fresh reports from Torokina, no one was injured however some houses and water tanks were destroyed.
The tidal wave went 3 meters into Marowa village and 5 meters into the Koromokina village.
The people packed whatever they could carry and moved inland into Piva Government station and returned in the early hours of this morning.
Paul Takila from the Torokina District Office also reported some food gardens were destroyed at Mawaraka in the Bana district.

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Update : As the nearest island locations are very remote, the chance that we will get more information is unfortunately almost zero.

Earthquake M7.4

TSUNAMI EVALUATION (after issuing warnings)
SEA LEVEL READINGS INDICATE A TSUNAMI WAS GENERATED. IT MAY HAVE  BEEN DESTRUCTIVE ALONG COASTS NEAR THE EARTHQUAKE EPICENTER. FOR  THOSE AREAS – WHEN NO MAJOR WAVES ARE OBSERVED FOR TWO HOURS  AFTER THE ESTIMATED TIME OF ARRIVAL OR DAMAGING WAVES HAVE NOT  OCCURRED FOR AT LEAST TWO HOURS THEN LOCAL AUTHORITIES CAN ASSUME  THE THREAT IS PASSED. DANGER TO BOATS AND COASTAL STRUCTURES CAN  CONTINUE FOR SEVERAL HOURS DUE TO RAPID CURRENTS. AS LOCAL  CONDITIONS CAN CAUSE A WIDE VARIATION IN TSUNAMI WAVE ACTION THE  ALL CLEAR DETERMINATION MUST BE MADE BY LOCAL AUTHORITIES.
NO TSUNAMI THREAT EXISTS FOR OTHER COASTAL AREAS IN THE PACIFIC  ALTHOUGH SOME OTHER AREAS MAY EXPERIENCE SMALL SEA LEVEL CHANGES.  THE TSUNAMI WARNING IS NOW CANCELED FOR ALL AREAS COVERED BY  THIS CENTER.

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75km (47mi) SW of Panguna, Papua New Guinea
87km (54mi) SW of Arawa, Papua New Guinea
394km (245mi) SE of Kokopo, Papua New Guinea
545km (339mi) ESE of Kimbe, Papua New Guinea
629km (391mi) WNW of Honiara, Solomon Islands

Earthquake M6.6

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59km (37mi) SW of Panguna, Papua New Guinea
71km (44mi) SW of Arawa, Papua New Guinea
404km (251mi) SE of Kokopo, Papua New Guinea
561km (349mi) ESE of Kimbe, Papua New Guinea
616km (383mi) WNW of Honiara, Solomon Islands

Most important Earthquake Data:

Magnitude : 6.6

Local Time (conversion only below land) : 2014-04-19 11:04:03

GMT/UTC Time : 2014-04-19 01:04:03

Depth (Hypocenter) : 24.4 km

from:    http://earthquake-report.com/2014/04/19/very-strong-earthquake-panguna-papua-new-guinea-on-april-19-2014/

Kingsley Dennis on the Akashic Age

The Akashic Age: Toward A New Era?


Humanity has been on a historically long journey to finally arrive at a world that is complex and interdependent. We are at a point in human history were we are leaving behind one age and entering the next. The epoch we are leaving behind is the modern age. The epoch we are about to shift into has been given many names – digital, post-modern, new age, etc – yet has so far suffered from lack of true and genuine foresight. These periods of transition are also moments of criticality and opportunity, when catalysts for change exert a greater than normal influence on the outcome of events. At such periods current ideas, institutions, and beliefs tend to outlive their usefulness.

 Yet there are guiding principles that can help us, if not to predict the future, then at least to foresee alternative models of the future. For example, we can see that many of our present systems seek growth through increasingly high complexity and numerous levels of organization, greater dynamism, and closer interaction and more delicate balance with the environment. Therefore, we can foresee a future that is highly connected and integrated; more decentralized; technologically advanced; more sustainably balanced; and non-locally interconnected. By ‘non-locally’ interconnected it is meant that physical objects/bodies – as well as human consciousness – maintain effective forms of relationships at a distance. The term ‘non-locality’ comes from the quantum sciences, which are central to offering the world a new paradigm of inclusive, intrinsic, and immediate oneness. It is a paradigm that helps to explain our inherent energetic connectivity, which forms a basis for the continued physical proximity and connectivity that develops in the world.  This emerging new paradigm is the key in understanding what is referred to as the Akashic Age[1].

The path to an Akashic Age is a time of transition where our crises become our catalysts; and our disruptions become our driving force. To a large degree, these opportunities/disruptors will be based on how we utilize our resources; communications in how we connect and collaborate; and consciousness in our patterns of thinking and inner coherence. In such times when there are major fluctuations in worldviews, values, and beliefs, we are compelled to re-organize how we think and do things. Such moments are ripe for new models to emerge. These new models are likely to first emerge on the periphery – as ‘anomalies’ – before creeping toward the centre to overwhelm and out-do the centralized and self-centered old systems. These new models also display a marked difference in that they operate through de-centralized and distributed channels, as horizontal networks of connection and collaboration; rather than as the vertical, top-down hierarchical systems of control in the old systems. Whereas previous models of civilization continued to grow through increasing centralization and hierarchy, they have now entered history with a death-cry and the onset of final collapse. The emerging new models all display a marked connectedness which, in the terminology of quantum science, can be referred to as ‘entanglement.’ So what are some of these new models?

New Akashic Models

i) Science

The challenge is to bring to the attention of people the view of the world emerging at science’s cutting edge. According to the latest findings in the quantum sciences the quantum state of particles, and even of whole atoms, can be instantly projected across any finite distance. This has come to be known as “teleportation.”  Also, instant quantum-resonance-based interactions have been discovered operating in living systems, and even in the universe at large. Such quantum-resonance-based interactions give rise to the phenomenon known as coherence.

The observed coherence suggests “nonlocal” interaction between the parts or elements of the systems: interaction that transcends the recognized bounds of space and time.  This kind of interaction surfaces not only in the quantum domain but, surprisingly, also at macroscopic dimensions. The Akashic Paradigm turns our current picture of the world on its head. In the everyday context we think that the things we see are real, and the space that embeds them is empty and passive. This concept is now being turned around. It is the space that embeds things that is real, and the things that move about in space that are secondary. This is the deep dimension of the world the ancient Indian rishis called Akasha. Their intuition is now confirmed at the cutting edge of the sciences.

The new Akashic paradigm is a holistic paradigm. All things interact with all other things, and all things are what they are through their interactions.  Wholeness is the essence of the new concept of reality.  The world is a coherent whole, made up of parts or elements coherently related each to the other. The holistic Akashic paradigm gives important guidance for us both individually and collectively. Recognizing the paramount importance of coherence is a key to our individual health and wellbeing. With the new vision that emerges at the cutting edge of the sciences, we can lend credence to our vital sense of oneness and inherent connectedness – and thus how we communicate as a species.

ii) Communication

A new form of participatory consciousness has been emerging through our increased interconnectivity and global intercommunication.  This is a distributed model that connects people horizontally in a more egalitarian way rather than through top-down structures. No longer do we have to remain the passive audience, as during the earlier communication revolutions of radio and television. The dialogue is now shifting into a more active domain where people are putting themselves onstage and orchestrating their own connections, presence, and self-expression. A more mature form of collective social intelligence is developing across the globe. It is likely that civil society, which is the largest movement in history, will grow to become more dominant and influential in transforming our societies. To belong to this diverse and yet unified family is not only a responsibility; it is also a blessing. The new contours of connection and communication are predisposed to a non-hierarchical bottom-up format: this is the essence of functional models for the Akashic Age.

Externally we may seem to be a vast, distant, and separated collection of people, yet the reality is just the opposite. The reality is that we form a dense, intimate, closely entwined species of various races, sharing a nonlocal sense of being. Younger generations of people worldwide are growing up with a new expression of consciousness. Recent explorations of the human psyche – psychological, psychoanalytical, transpersonal, etc – are mixing with communication technologies that inspire a more reflexive mode of thought. More and more daily interactions are empathic as people react and share news, stories and emotional impacts from sources around the world.

Empathy is becoming one of the core values by which we create and sustain social life. Exposure to impacts outside of our own narrow environment will help us to achieve tolerance. We are living with experiences that are richer and more complex, full of ambiguities, multiple realities and shared perceptions. This collaborative and participatory world of online content could become a ‘global commons’ that reinforces a sense of local identity whilst connecting people in all parts of the globe. This outreach of connectivity has the power and the potential to break down old perceptual paradigms of duality – the ‘us’ and ‘them’ – that have been exploited by governments and ruling authorities to serve their own goals of control and conquest.

The model that distributed communications represent is a bottom-up, horizontal medium for spreading awareness, information, and contact. It is horizontal in that it bypasses the old model of top-down, hierarchical control structures that have been so strongly in place throughout much of our history. If it is to truly become an effective new model for the Akashic Age, this horizontal model of distributed connectivity needs to grow and develop beyond the virtual world into the physical world. It must be able to transform how we do things daily in our communities and immediate environments. The applications of the model need to cross-fertilize, so that our technologies of global connectivity can enhance and enrich our lives, friendships, and consciousness.

iii) Consciousness

Our modern sense of self-awareness, and our physical/emotional/spiritual self have evolved to root us in a social world: a world of extended relations and social connectivity. We have been preparing ourselves for the coming of an Akashic Age. Humanity can be said to be ‘hard-wired’ to evolve into an extended self – unity within diversity. Our diversity is strengthened through our connections, collaborations, and shared consciousness. Our unity is enhanced through our empathy, compassion, and shared sense of responsibility and destiny. We are responding today to an unprecedented flow of information that is catalyzing a restructuring of our inner psychological states as well as our external social structures. A new awareness in human consciousness is being birthed: an Akashic consciousness.

This period of (r)evolutionary change requires a qualitative transformation in our consciousness. We do not need to wield physical or political power to be effective agents of this transformation. We each can learn to expand and refine our ways of perception, thinking, and action. Aspects of an evolving consciousness suggest an empathic mind that is aware of its connectivity both locally and globally, physically as well as non-physically. The new Akasha paradigm recognizes that the coherence of the whole is a precondition of the functioning of the parts. It is important then that coherence is not merely an individual attribute. The right way to be and to act is not just to enhance our own, individual coherence, but to contribute to the coherence of the systems that frame and sustain our life. This means achieving or safeguarding our coherence with our fellows in a community, in a state and nation, in a culture, and in the living world as a whole. This way of behaving supports the precepts of a quantum resonance-based nonlocal consciousness – an Akashic consciousness.

A state of consciousness that reflects unity within diversity develops through human activity that expresses both greater individuation and a greater sense of shared responsibility. It is time to view our situation through the wide-angle lens of wisdom: we need to begin to see, understand, and act upon the bigger picture. Recognizing the bigger picture, and the central importance of coherence, is a key to our individual health and wellbeing, as well as to the survival of our species.

As evolutionary biologists tell us, there comes a time in species development and growth when the necessity to collaborate rather than compete becomes not only an advantage, but an evolutionary imperative. The signs of this greater connectivity of sharing have been unfolding within our modern cultures over some years now. They will be instrumental in creating our humane and sustainable communities as the Akashic Age dawns.

iv) Community

To have a healthy and vibrant future means investing in people, in our communities, and in our sense of togetherness. As in the old gift economies, intrinsic value comes through giving rather than looking after only oneself; that is, value through service to others rather than only service-to-self. We can leave behind the emphasis on a ‘one size fits all’ prescriptive model and steer toward local variations – assets, resources, etc – that can stimulate the emergence of discoveries, activity, and creative solutions according to differing locations.

The local scale is the more robust, and as such the future needs to become inherently more local: an intentional movement toward local self-dependency. Such arrangements could include local forms of currency; locally managed community energy; local food production and distribution; and local social enterprises. The extensive technologies of communication and connectivity that we currently enjoy can, and need to be, maintained and sustained as a priority so that local regions and communities can not only stay connected but also collaborate and share skills and resources. In other words, the rise of localized hubs operating within global networks. These localized hubs involve communities that are self-defining, self-organizing collectives; dense localizations of resources and resource sharing. Localization is, after all, also the celebration of place. People can be proud of local development and dependency, regardless of their political ideologies.

As regions shift their focus onto what they are able to provide, such as local goods and food, this could stimulate a reinvigoration of distinct local cultures. A surge in local growth and resilience would be supported by our global networks. Such networks would also facilitate a move away from ‘heavier’ technologies based on centralization of control toward distributed networks that require less energy to sustain them. That is, heavily centralized utility infrastructures need to be replaced by horizontal, decentralized and distributed networks.

I am not talking about ‘going back’ to a more primitive state. Rather, I suggest we engage with people’s passion for change rather than with their fear. A globally aligned response, through utilizing local resources and assets, can be a way of fostering coherence throughout society. Although the road to increasing local self-dependency may not be as easy and cheerful a path we may like to believe, it will become our advantage. The hard work involved in ‘doing things differently’ can also offer to us a deeper appreciation of our human connections, our matrix of family, friends, and neighbors, as well as the satisfaction of learning new capacities and skills.

The Akasha paradigm gives us a coherent view of ourselves, of nature, and of the cosmos. Our capacity for making the needed changes at this critical moment equips our species with the potential to solve our current and future problems. We are about to see a profound change in the tenor of human life on this planet. Everything we do today is about this monumental change toward an Akashic Age.

Toward an Akashic Age

It often happens that an awakening in consciousness rouses the need to get involved in service for a common purpose; based on an awareness that each of us is ultimately entangled with all others within the web of life. What we choose to do today will be inherited by the world to come. We each thus have an obligation to foster a more integral, empathic, and sustainable world.

For our planet to have any future that is not only sustainable but also fosters human developmental growth and well-being, we need an Akashic Age that promotes the natural integrated flow of living systems. Such an era would encourage social as well as self-actualization, and plants the seeds of a new culture that respects and honors the Earth and her diverse peoples. The Akashic Age represents a new stage in human consciousness, a stage that allows humanity to rise and overcome all challenges it confronts. It is up to us to allow the possibility that such an Age may be more than just a possible future. It can be OUR future, if we truly want it to be

from:    http://realitysandwich.com/218575/the-akashic-age-toward-a-new-era/

Your Color Vibe for Saturday, 4/19

Saturday, April 19:   Kelly Green

Here it goes again. There will be a lot of things coming up today that you have seen, before, heard before, dealt with before, thought about before. The question now is what are you going to do with all of this. It is around you for a reason. It is time to make some decisions about things that you have left hanging for so long. Because of the distractions that seem to be everywhere today, you can find it hard to focus on these things, but they are important. As you move forward in this energy it is well to be an unencumbered by other things as possible. Take time today to look around and see what it is that is just taking up space in your life, and if you are not able or willing to deal with it right now, then make a plan for dealing with it later.

Using Magnetic Fields for Power Transfer

Wireless Power Transfer Achieved Using Magnetic Field

Image source

Activist Post

The way electronic devices receive their power has changed tremendously over the past few decades, from wired to non-wired. Users today enjoy all kinds of wireless electronic gadgets including cell phones, mobile displays, tablet PCs, and even batteries.

The Internet has also shifted from wired to wireless. Now, researchers and engineers are trying to remove the last remaining wires altogether by developing wireless power transfer technology.

Chun T. Rim, a professor of Nuclear & Quantum Engineering at KAIST, and his team showcased, on April 16, 2014 at the KAIST campus, Daejeon, Republic of Korea, a great improvement in the distance that electric power can travel wirelessly. They developed the “Dipole Coil Resonant System (DCRS)” for an extended range of inductive power transfer, up to 5 meters between transmitter and receiver coils.

Since MIT’s (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) introduction of the Coupled Magnetic Resonance System (CMRS) in 2007, which used a magnetic field to transfer energy for a distance of 2.1 meters, the development of long-distance wireless power transfer has attracted much attention for further research.

However, in terms of extending the distance of wireless power, CMRS, for example, has revealed technical limitations to commercialization that are yet to be solved: a rather complicated coil structure (composed of four coils for input, transmission, reception, and load); bulky-size resonant coils; high frequency (in a range of 10 MHz) required to resonate the transmitter and receiver coils, which results in low transfer efficiency; and a high Q factor of 2,000 that makes the resonant coils very sensitive to surroundings such as temperature, humidity, and human proximityProfessor Rim proposed a meaningful solution to these problems through DCRS, an optimally designed coil structure that has two magnetic dipole coils, a primary one to induce a magnetic field and a secondary to receive electric power. Unlike the large and thick loop-shaped air coils built in CMRS, the KAIST research team used compact ferrite core rods with windings at their centers. The high frequency AC current of the primary winding generates a magnetic field, and then the linkage magnetic flux induces the voltage at the secondary winding.

Scalable and slim with a size of 3 m in length, 10 cm in width, and 20 cm in height, DCRS is significantly smaller than CMRS. The system has a low Q factor of 100, showing 20 times stronger against the environment changes, and works well at a low frequency of 100 kHz. The team conducted several experiments and achieved promising results: for instance, under the operation of 20 kHz, the maximum output power was 1,403 W at a 3-meter distance, 471 W at 4-meter, and 209 W at 5-meter. For 100 W of electric power transfer, the overall system power efficiency was 36.9% at 3 meters, 18.7% at 4 meters, and 9.2% at 5 meters.

“With DCRS,” Professor Rim said, “a large LED TV as well as three 40 W-fans can be powered from a 5-meter distance.”

“Our technology proved the possibility of a new remote power delivery mechanism that has never been tried at such a long distance. Although the long-range wireless power transfer is still in an early stage of commercialization and quite costly to implement, we believe that this is the right direction for electric power to be supplied in the future. Just like we see Wi-Fi zones everywhere today, we will eventually have many Wi-Power zones at such places as restaurants and streets that provide electric power wirelessly to electronic devices. We will use all the devices anywhere without tangled wires attached and anytime without worrying about charging their batteries.”

Professor Rim’s team completed a research project with the Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co., Ltd in March this year to remotely supply electric power to essential instrumentation and control equipment at a nuclear power plant in order to properly respond to an emergency like the one happened at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. They succeeded to transfer 10 W of electricity to the plant that was located 7 meters away from the power base.

from:    http://www.activistpost.com/2014/04/wireless-power-transfer-achieved-using.html

Ways to Change those Negative Habits

7 Common Habits of Unhappy People

by Henrik Edberg

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Image by Mitya Kuznetsov (license).

.“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.”
Marcus Aurelius

“Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”
Marcel Proust

Circumstances can certainly make life unhappy. But a part – often a big part – of unhappiness comes from our own thinking, behavior and habits.

In this article I’d like to share 7 of the most destructive daily habits that can create quite a bit of unhappiness within and in your own little world.

But I’ll also share what has worked, what has helped me to minimize or overcome these habits in my life.

1. Aiming for perfection.

Does life has to be perfect before you are happy?

Do you have to behave in a perfect way and get perfect results to be happy?

Then happiness will not be easy to find. Setting the bar for your performance at an inhuman level usually leads to low self-esteem and feeling like you are not good enough even though you may have had a lot of good or excellent results. You and what you do is never enough good enough except maybe once in a while when feels like something goes just perfect.

How to overcome this habit:

Three things that helped me to kick the perfectionism habit and become more relaxed:

  • Go for good enough. Aiming for perfection usually winds up in a project or something else never being finished. So go for good enough instead. Don’t use it as an excuse to slack off. But simply realize that there is something called good enough and when you are there then you are finished with whatever you are doing.
  • Have a deadline. I set deadlines every time that start with a new premium guide. Because about a year ago, when I was working on my second e-book, I realized that just working on it and releasing it when it was done would not work. Because I could always find stuff to add to it. So I had to set a deadline. Setting a deadline gave me a kick in the butt and it is generally good way to help you to let go of a need to polish things a bit too much.
  • Realize what it costs you when you buy into myths of perfection. This was a very powerful reason for me to let go of perfectionism and one I tell myself still if I find thoughts of perfection pop up in my mind. By watching too many movies, listening to too many songs and just taking in what the world is telling you it is very easy to be lulled into dreams of perfection. It sounds so good and wonderful and you want it.
    But in real life it clashes with reality and tends to cause much suffering and stress within you and in the people around you. It can harm or possibly lead you to end relationships, jobs, projects etc. just because your expectations are out of this world. I find it very helpful to remind myself of this simple fact.

2. Living in a sea of negative voices.

No one is an island. Who we socialize with, what we read, watch and listen to has big effect on how we feel and think.

It becomes a lot harder to be happier if you let yourself be dragged down by negative voices. Voices that tell you that life will in large part always be unhappy, dangerous and filled with fear and limits. Voices that watch life from a negative perspective.

How to overcome this habit:

Replacing those negative voices with more positive influences is very powerful. It can be like a whole new world opening up.

So spend more time with positive people, inspiring music and books, movies and TV-shows that make you laugh and think about life in a new way.

You can start small. For example, try reading an uplifting blog or book or listen to an audio book while eating your breakfast one morning this week instead of reading the paper or watching the morning news on TV.

3. Getting stuck in the past and future too much.

Spending much of your time in the past and reliving old painful memories, conflicts, missed opportunities and so on can hurt whole lot. Spending much of your time in the future and imagining how things could go wrong at work, in your relationships and with your health can build into horrifying nightmare scenarios playing over and over in your head. Not being here right now in life as it happens can lead to missing out on a lot of wonderful experiences.

No good if you want to be happier.

How to overcome this habit:

It is pretty much impossible to not think about the past or the future. And it is of course important to plan for tomorrow and next year and to try to learn from your past.

But to dwell on those things rarely help.

So I try as best as I can to spend the rest of my time, the big part of my time each day, with living in the now. Just being here right now and being fully focused on these words I am writing and later as I cook and eat my lunch and work out be fully focused on doing that.

Whatever I am doing I try to be there fully and not drift off into the future or past.

If I do drift off then I focus only on my breathing for a few minutes or I sit still and take in what is all around me right now with all my senses for a short while. By doing either of those things I can realign myself with the present moment again.

4. Comparing yourself and your life to others and their lives.

One very common and destructive daily habit is to constantly compare your life and yourself to other people and their lives. You compare cars, houses, jobs, shoes, money, relationships, social popularity and so on. And at the end of the day you pummel your self-esteem to the ground and you create a lot of negative feelings.

How to overcome this habit:

Replace that destructive habit with two other habits.

  • Compare yourself to yourself. First, instead of comparing yourself to other people create the habit of comparing yourself to yourself. See how much you have grown, what you have achieved and what progress you have made towards your goals. This habit has the benefit of creating gratitude, appreciation and kindness towards yourself as you observe how far you have come, the obstacles you have overcome and the good stuff you have done.
    You feel good about yourself without having to think less of other people.
  • Be kind. In my experience, the way you behave and think towards others seems to have a big, big effect on how you behave towards yourself and think about yourself. Judge and criticize people more and you tend to judge and criticize yourself more (often almost automatically). Be more kind to other people and help them and you tend to be more kind and helpful to yourself.
    Focus on the positive things in yourself and in the people around you. Appreciate what is positive in yourself and others. This way you become more OK with yourself and the people in your world instead of ranking them and yourself and creating differences in your mind.

And remember, you can’t win if you keep comparing. Just consciously realizing this can be helpful. No matter what you do you can pretty much always find someone else in the world that has more than you or are better than you at something.

5. Focusing on the negative details in life.

Seeing the negative aspects of whichever situation you are in and dwelling on those details is a sure way to make yourself unhappy. And to drag down the mood for everyone around you.

How to overcome this habit:

Overcoming this habit can be tricky. One thing that has worked for me is to kick the perfectionism habit. You accept that things and situations will have their upsides and downsides rather than thinking that all details have to positive and excellent. You accept things as they are. This way you can let go emotionally and mentally of what is negative instead of dwelling on it and making mountains out of molehills.

Another thing that works is simply to focus on being constructive. Instead of focusing on dwelling and whining about the negative detail. You can do so by asking better questions. Questions like:

How can I turn this negative thing into something helpful or positive?
How can I solve this problem?

If I am faced with what I start thinking is a problem I may use a third solution, I may ask myself: who cares? I most often then realize that this isn’t really a problem in the long run at all.

6. Limiting life because you believe the world revolves around you.

If you think that the world revolves around you and you hold yourself back because you are afraid what people may think or say if you do something that different or new then you are putting some big limits on your life. How?

Well, you can become less open to trying new things and growing.You can think that the criticism and negativity you encounter is about you or that it is your fault all the time (while it in reality could be about the other person having bad week or you thinking that you can read minds). I have also found that my own shyness used to come from me thinking that people cared a great deal about what I was about to say or do.

How to overcome this habit:

  • Realize people don’t care too much about what you do. They have their hands full with worrying about their own lives and what people may think of them instead. Yes, this might make you feel less important in your own head. But it also sets you free a bit more if you’d like that.
  • Focus outward. Instead of thinking about yourself and how people may perceive you all the time, focus outward on the people around you. Listen to them and help them. This will help you to raise your self-esteem and help you to reduce that self-centered focus.

7. Overcomplicating life.

Life can be pretty complicated. This can creates stress and unhappiness. But much of this is often created by us. Yes, the world may be becoming more complex but that doesn’t mean that we cannot create new habits that make your own lives a bit simpler.

How to overcome this habit:

Overcomplicating life can involve many habits but I’d like to suggest a few replacement habits to what have been a couple of my own most overcomplicating habits.

  • Splitting your focus and having your attention all over the place in everyday life. I replaced that complicating habit with just doing one thing at a time during my day, having a small to-do list with 2-3 very important items and writing down my most important goal on white board that I see each day.
  • Having too much stuff. I replaced that habit with regularly asking myself: have I used this in the past year? If not then I will give that thing away or throw it away.
  • Creating relationship problems of any kind in your mind. Reading minds is hard. So, instead ask questions and communicate. This will help you to minimize unnecessary conflicts, misunderstandings, negativity and waste or time and energy.
  • Getting lost in the in-box. I spend less time and energy on my email in-box by just checking it once a day and writing shorter emails (if possible not more than 5 sentences.)
  • Getting lost in stress and overwhelm. When stressed, lost in a problem or the past or future in your mind then, as I mentioned above, breathe with your belly for two minutes and just focus on the air going in and out. This will calm your body down and bring your mind back into the present moment again. Then you can start focusing on doing what is most important for you again
  • FROM:    http://www.positivityblog.com/index.php/2011/10/05/7-habits/

Some Words from Gandhi

Gandhi’s Top 10 Fundamentals for Changing the World

by Henrik Edberg

“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”

“The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problem.”

“If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide.”

Mahatma Gandhi needs no long introduction. Everyone knows about the man who lead the Indian people to independence from British rule in 1947.

So let’s just move on to some of my favourite tips from Mahatma Gandhi.

1. Change yourself.

“You must be the change you want to see in the world.”

“As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that is the myth of the atomic age – as in being able to remake ourselves.”

If you change yourself you will change your world. If you change how you think then you will change how you feel and what actions you take. And so the world around you will change. Not only because you are now viewing your environment through new lenses of thoughts and emotions but also because the change within can allow you to take action in ways you wouldn’t have – or maybe even have thought about – while stuck in your old thought patterns.

And the problem with changing your outer world without changing yourself is that you will still be you when you reach that change you have strived for. You will still have your flaws, anger, negativity, self-sabotaging tendencies etc. intact.

And so in this new situation you will still not find what you hoped for since your mind is still seeping with that negative stuff. And if you get more without having some insight into and distance from your ego it may grow more powerful. Since your ego loves to divide things, to find enemies and to create separation it may start to try to create even more problems and conflicts in your life and world.

2. You are in control.

“Nobody can hurt me without my permission.”

What you feel and how you react to something is always up to you. There may be a “normal” or a common way to react to different things. But that’s mostly just all it is.

You can choose your own thoughts, reactions and emotions to pretty much everything. You don’t have to freak out, overreact of even react in a negative way. Perhaps not every time or instantly. Sometimes a knee-jerk reaction just goes off. Or an old thought habit kicks in.

And as you realize that no-one outside of yourself can actually control how you feel you can start to incorporate this thinking into your daily life and develop it as a thought habit. A habit that you can grow stronger and stronger over time. Doing this makes life a whole lot easier and more pleasurable.

3. Forgive and let it go.

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”

“An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”

Fighting evil with evil won’t help anyone. And as said in the previous tip, you always choose how to react to something. When you can incorporate such a thought habit more and more into your life then you can react in a way that is more useful to you and others.

You realize that forgiving and letting go of the past will do you and the people in your world a great service. And spending your time in some negative memory won’t help you after you have learned the lessons you can learn from that experience. You’ll probably just cause yourself more suffering and paralyze yourself from taking action in this present moment.

If you don’t forgive then you let the past and another person to control how you feel. By forgiving you release yourself from those bonds. And then you can focus totally on, for instance, the next point.

4. Without action you aren’t going anywhere.

“An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.”

Without taking action very little will be done. However, taking action can be hard and difficult. There can be much inner resistance.

And so you may resort to preaching, as Gandhi says. Or reading and studying endlessly. And feeling like you are moving forward. But getting little or no practical results in real life.

So, to really get where you want to go and to really understand yourself and your world you need to practice. Books can mostly just bring you knowledge. You have to take action and translate that knowledge into results and understanding.

You can check out a few effective tips to overcome this problem in How to Take More Action: 9 Powerful Tips. Or you can move on to the next point for more on the best tip for taking more action that I have found so far.

5. Take care of this moment.

“I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present. God has given me no control over the moment following.”

The best way that I have found to overcome the inner resistance that often stops us from taking action is to stay in the present as much as possible and to be accepting.

Why? Well, when you are in the present moment you don’t worry about the next moment that you can’t control anyway. And the resistance to action that comes from you imagining negative future consequences – or reflecting on past failures – of your actions loses its power. And so it becomes easier to both take action and to keep your focus on this moment and perform better.

Have a look at 8 Ways to Return to the Present Moment for tips on how quickly step into the now. And remember that reconnecting with and staying in the now is a mental habit – a sort of muscle – that you grow. Over time it becomes more powerful and makes it easier to slip into the present moment.

6. Everyone is human.

“I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.”

“It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.”

When you start to make myths out of people – even though they may have produced extraordinary results – you run the risk of becoming disconnected from them. You can start to feel like you could never achieve similar things that they did because they are so very different. So it’s important to keep in mind that everyone is just a human being no matter who they are.

And I think it’s important to remember that we are all human and prone to make mistakes. Holding people to unreasonable standards will only create more unnecessary conflicts in your world and negativity within you.

It’s also important to remember this to avoid falling into the pretty useless habit of beating yourself up over mistakes that you have made. And instead be able to see with clarity where you went wrong and what you can learn from your mistake. And then try again.

7. Persist.

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

Be persistent. In time the opposition around you will fade and fall away. And your inner resistance and self-sabotaging tendencies that want to hold you back and keep you like you have always been will grow weaker.

Find what you really like to do. Then you’ll find the inner motivation to keep going, going and going. You can also find a lot of useful tips on how keep your motivation up in How to Get Out of a Motivational Slump and 25 Simple Ways to Motivate Yourself.

One reason Gandhi was so successful with his method of non-violence was because he and his followers were so persistent. They just didn’t give up.

Success or victory will seldom come as quickly as you would have liked it to. I think one of the reasons people don’t get what they want is simply because they give up too soon. The time they think an achievement will require isn’t the same amount of time it usually takes to achieve that goal. This faulty belief partly comes from the world we live in. A world full of magic pill solutions where advertising continually promises us that we can lose a lot of weight or earn a ton of money in just 30 days. You can read more about this in One Big Mistake a Whole Lot of People Make.

Finally, one useful tip to keep your persistence going is to listen to Gandhi’s third quote in this article and keep a sense of humor. It can lighten things up at the toughest of times.

8. See the good in people and help them.

“I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won’t presume to probe into the faults of others.”

“Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men.”

“I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.”

There is pretty much always something good in people. And things that may not be so good. But you can choose what things to focus on. And if you want improvement then focusing on the good in people is a useful choice. It also makes life easier for you as your world and relationships become more pleasant and positive.

And when you see the good in people it becomes easier to motivate yourself to be of service to them. By being of service to other people, by giving them value you not only make their lives better. Over time you tend to get what you give. And the people you help may feel more inclined to help other people. And so you, together, create an upward spiral of positive change that grows and becomes stronger.

By strengthening your social skills you can become a more influential person and make this upward spiral even stronger. A few articles that may provide you with useful advice in that department are Do You Make These 10 Mistakes in a Conversation? and Dale Carnegie’s Top 10 Tips for Improving Your Social Skills. Or you can just move on to the next tip.

9. Be congruent, be authentic, be your true self.

“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”

“Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.”

I think that one of the best tips for improving your social skills is to behave in a congruent manner and communicate in an authentic way. People seem to really like authentic communication. And there is much inner enjoyment to be found when your thoughts, words and actions are aligned. You feel powerful and good about yourself.

When words and thoughts are aligned then that shows through in your communication. Because now you have your voice tonality and body language – some say they are over 90 percent of communication – in alignment with your words.

With these channels in alignment people tend to really listen to what you’re saying. You are communicating without incongruency, mixed messages or perhaps a sort of phoniness.

Also, if your actions aren’t in alignment with what you’re communicating then you start to hurt your own belief in what you can do. And other people’s belief in you too.

10. Continue to grow and evolve.

”Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.”

You can pretty much always improve your skills, habits or re-evaluate your evaluations. You can gain deeper understanding of yourself and the world.

Sure, you may look inconsistent or like you don’t know what you are doing from time to time. You may have trouble to act congruently or to communicate authentically. But if you don’t then you will, as Gandhi says, drive yourself into a false position. A place where you try to uphold or cling to your old views to appear consistent while you realise within that something is wrong. It’s not a fun place to be. To choose to grow and evolve is a happier and more useful path to take.

from:    http://www.positivityblog.com/index.php/2008/05/09/gandhis-top-10-fundamentals-for-changing-the-world/

Earthquake – Santa Cruz Islands Area

Very Strong earthquake – Santa Cruz Islands Region on April 18, 2014

Last update: April 18, 2014 at 4:39 am by By

Update 04:38 UTC : The earthquake’s epicenter is too far away from Nendo, the closest island, to be dangerous.
The Santa Cruz Islands have regular massive earthquakes and had a deadly earthquake / tsunami last year. That earthquake was massive, shallow and nearby one of the islands.-

Most important Earthquake Data:

Magnitude : 6.1

Local Time (conversion only below land) : 2014-04-18 15:13:13

GMT/UTC Time : 2014-04-18 04:13:13

from:    http://earthquake-report.com/2014/04/18/very-strong-earthquake-santa-cruz-islands-region-on-april-18-2014/

Earthquake-report.com is a independent NGO website who only survives because of (mostly small) PRIVATE DONATIONS. Your gift will be highly appreciated.

On the Brains of Artists

Artists brains are ‘structurally different’ claims new study

Limited study found more grey and white matter in artists’ brains connected to visual imagination and fine motor control

It’s a truism to say that artists see the world differently from the rest of us, but new research suggests that their brains are structurally different as well.

The small study, published in journal NeuroImage, looked at the brain scans of 21 art students and 23 non-artists using a scanning method known as voxel-based morphometry.

Comparisons between the two groups showed that the artist has more neural matter in the parts of their brain relating to visual imagery and fine motor control.

Although this is certainly a physical difference it does not mean that artists’ talents are innate. The balance between the influence of nature and nurture is never easy to divine, and the authors say that training and upbringing also plays a large role in ability.

The brain scans were accompanied by various drawing tasks, with the researchers finding that those who performed best at these tests routinely had more grey and white matter in the motor areas of the brain.

“The people who are better at drawing really seem to have more developed structures in regions of the brain that control for fine motor performance and what we call procedural memory,” lead author Rebecca Chamberlain from KU Leuven University, Belgium told the BBC.

The artists also showed significantly more grey matter in the part of the brain called the parietal lobe, a region involved with a range of activities that include the capacity to imagine, deconstruct and combine visual imagery.

Scientists also suggest that the study would help put to rest the idea that artists predominantly use the right side of their brain, as the study showed that increased grey and white matter was found equally distributed.

Despite this, previous research has suggested that there are some hard-wired structural differences between individuals’ brains, with some of the divides falling across gender lines.

A ‘pioneering study’ published in December last year found that male brains had more neural connections running front to back while female brains had more connections between the right and left hemisphere. Scientist suggested that this could explain why men are ‘better at reading maps’ and women are ‘better at remembering a conversation.

from:   http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/artists-brains-are-structurally-different-claims-new-study-9267513.html

 

Here is a video:

 

 

Huge Earthquake in Mexico

Massive earthquake at intermediate depth in Guerrero, Mexico

Last update: April 18, 2014 at 4:17 pm by By

Update 16:15 UTC : Until now only some reports of broken windows and some collapsed walls.

Important Update 15:55 UTC : USGS has decreased the Magnitude to M7.2 but has also decreased the depth to 24 km – We still believe that this earthquake is extremely dangerous! USGS epicenter remains below land (no tsunami danger).
Below the epicenter  and the seismogram as reported by the Mexican SSN seismological service. SSN report M7.0 at 10 km (10 km is also used as number if the precise depth has not yet been calculated). People should stay away from the shores and should NOT go into the water as strong currents may sweep them into the sea.

Screen Shot 2014-04-18 at 18.58.15 Screen Shot 2014-04-18 at 18.59.00

Update 15:50 UTC : Also the DF Mexico City suffered shortages of power and even the airport in Mexico City was a little while affected. The Mexican seismological agency is putting the epicenter in the ocean, a big difference with USGS below land. Still no news from the epicenter area, but this is NO surprise as telecommunications and power are down in this area.

Update 15:38 UTC : More reports of Power Cuts and loss of telecommunications in a number of provinces. No specific news yet from the epicenter area.

Update 15:35 UTC : Power, communications down in Chilpancingo, Guerrero state, Mexico

Update 15:30 UTC : This region is regularly hit by very strong to massive earthquakes the preceding years without generating massive damage. We hope this will be the case today too. Please take a look at the map below to see the earthquakes in the region since 1900!

Update 15:20 UTC : The theoretical injuries and fatalities engine from Max Wyss expects that this earthquake may cause 0 to 500 people to be injured and 0 – 50 people to be killed. The numbers are based on a Magnitude of M7.5 at a depth of 48 km

Update 15:11 UTC : Based on theoretical data from USGS this earthquake was felt by 130,000 people as severe shaking. Severe shaking is seen by Earthquake Report as a potential damage shaking

Screen Shot 2014-04-18 at 18.08.21 Screen Shot 2014-04-18 at 18.08.42

VERY DANGEROUS earthquake below Guerrero Mexico and the greater Acapulco area.

Update : The intermediate depth of 50 km will weaken the shaking a little bit but this earthquake remains extremely dangerous and serious injuries and collapsed houses will be NO surprise to us. This earthquake happens at the end of the Semana Santa in Mexico!

Screen Shot 2014-04-18 at 18.02.49

37km (23mi) N of Tecpan de Galeana, Mexico
53km (33mi) NW of Atoyac de Alvarez, Mexico
56km (35mi) E of Petatlan, Mexico
81km (50mi) S of Ciudad Altamirano, Mexico
265km (165mi) SW of Mexico City, Mexico

Most important Earthquake Data:

Magnitude : 7.2

Local Time (conversion only below land) : 2014-04-18 09:27:25

GMT/UTC Time : 2014-04-18 14:27:25

Depth (Hypocenter) : 29 km

from:     http://earthquake-report.com/2014/04/18/massive-earthquake-guerrero-mexico-on-april-18-2014/

San Juan County New Mexico Pollution & Activism

Aztec woman says her ‘Toxic Tour of Hell’ points out San Juan County sites that pollute the air

San Juan County officials say air quality is improving, complaints about pollution are few
by James Fenton The Daily Times

 

Environmental activist Shirley "Sug" McNall stands in front of an XTO Energy well on March 19 on Martinez Lane in Aztec. McNall added the well,

Environmental activist Shirley “Sug” McNall stands in front of an XTO Energy well on March 19 on Martinez Lane in Aztec. McNall added the well, which is near McCoy Elementary School, to her “Toxic Tour of Hell,” which includes sites in San Juan County she says are polluting the air. A spokeswoman for XTO Energy says a leak did not occur at the well site. (Megan Farmer — The Daily Times)

AZTEC — Shirley “Sug” McNall says the San Juan Basin can be an outdoors paradise for visitors. But for those who live here and breathe the air, she says, it’s just plain hell.

McNall, 69, is a member of an ad hoc environmentalist group — with friends Tweeti Blancett, Jan Rees and Kris Dixon — called the Four Grans.

“Tweeti’s family, like mine, were homesteaders and ranchers, with a long feuding history of dealing with the oil companies,” McNall said. “… Jan is our group’s expert on wildlife and the environment, and Kris is our statistician and organizer.”

The four Aztec grandmothers, who met at a clean-air conference more than a decade ago, work toward improving San Juan County’s air quality.

A well, which is owned by XTO Energy, a subsidiary of ExxonMobil, is shown on March 19 on Martinez Lane in Aztec. Shirley "Sug" McNall says the

A well, which is owned by XTO Energy, a subsidiary of ExxonMobil, is shown on March 19 on Martinez Lane in Aztec. Shirley “Sug” McNall says the well site was emitting strong gas fumes last month. An XTO Energy spokeswoman says there was no leak at the site. (Megan Farmer — The Daily Times)

For eight years, McNall has taken people on tours of the area in her small, sky-blue pickup truck, its tailgate plastered with progressive bumper stickers that stand out in Republican-dominated San Juan County. Her tour skips popular stops like Aztec Ruins or Quality Waters in favor of gas pads and waste disposal sites she says are guilty of polluting the air with noxious chemicals.

What McNall calls the “Toxic Tour of Hell,” began in 2005 after she attended a summit on oil and gas industry accountability in Farmington. She started with seven sites around the county she says are polluting.

“The summit brought together scientists, tribes, officials, and they wanted to actually see the sites they were hearing about, and I said I’d show them,” she said.

Over the years, McNall said she’s given the tour to a number of people, including film crews from Japan and South Africa and an official from the Natural Resources Defense Council’s office in Washington, D.C. She can also be seen in the 2010 HBO documentary on hydraulic fracturing — or “fracking” — called “Gasland.”

McNall’s family homesteaded more than 700 acres in the Crouch Mesa area and moved to her home off of Navajo Dam Road near Tiger Park in 1976. In the years she has lived there with her husband, Warren, McNall says she has seen wells pop up around her property.

Shirley "Sug" McNall is pictured on March 6. McNall is a member of the Four Grans, an ad hoc environmentalist group of four Aztec grandmothers

Shirley “Sug” McNall is pictured on March 6. McNall is a member of the Four Grans, an ad hoc environmentalist group of four Aztec grandmothers who say oil companies are polluting San Juan County’s air. (Megan Farmer — The Daily Times)

In 2010, McNall and a group of friends formed the San Juan Bucket Brigade, a local program of Global Community Monitor, a nonprofit human rights organization, to take air quality samples at three oil and gas facilities in the county. McNall said all three came back with elevated levels of carcinogens that are above what the Environmental Protection Agency recommends.

“This county has higher than average rates of asthma, especially among children, and elevated rates of cancer, which is alarming,” said McNall, who says the air pollution has caused her and others eye irritation and trouble breathing. “The problem is that a lot of the oil field workers know what’s going on, but they don’t dare say a word. Of course, the workers get protective gear to wear, but what do us residents get?”

San Juan County Operations Officer Mike Stark argues air quality in the area is cleaner than in the past and is showing signs of improving even more with the planned unit reductions at two major power plants, Four Corners Power Plant and San Juan Generating Station, both near Farmington.

“We should actually see some improved air quality in the Four Corners with these environmentally friendly unit reductions,” Stark said. “And oil and gas drilling has been light the last three years. So, once again, less pollution. Things should be getting better.”

McNall said she understands the need for energy. Born and raised in the area, her grandparents, uncles and first husband worked in the oil patch. Despite that, McNall says she is enraged refineries can get away with emitting carcinogens and chemicals that pollute the air and do so in close proximity to neighborhoods.

The latest addition to her tour, stop No. 8, is a well site near McCoy Elementary School’s playground along Martinez Lane.

McNall added the well site, owned by XTO Energy Inc., a subsidiary of ExxonMobil, early last month when her friend, former City Commissioner Jack Scott, drove by the school and smelled gas fumes.

“Warren and I got a call from Jack telling us that the gas pad was stinkin’ something fierce, despite their car’s windows rolled up when they drove by,” McNall said.

She said she quickly wrote to Aztec Municipal School District Superintendent Kirk Carpenter, Aztec City Manager Josh Ray and Brandon Powell, a field inspector with the Aztec division office of the Environment Department’s Oil Conservation Division.

Emily Snooks, a spokeswoman for XTO Energy, said no leak occurred at the well site.

Inspections of the company’s well sites by an XTO Energy Lease Operator are conducted approximately every other day, Snooks wrote in an email.

“In February, XTO Energy staff responded to a complaint of an odor,” Snooks wrote in an email. “An XTO employee met an inspector from the New Mexico Oil Conservation Division at the well site. No leak was detected and XTO Energy was not fined or sited by the NMOCD.”

Snooks said XTO staff reviewed several days of automated reports at the well and did not find a loss of gas volume or pressure, which would have indicated a leak.

“The XTO employee noticed a manual water dump valve on the separator was not as pliable as a new valve would be so just as a precaution, it was replaced,” Snooks wrote.

San Juan County Commissioner Scott Eckstein, whose district includes Aztec and Bloomfield, said that in his eight years of service he has only received about four or five complaints over air pollution.

“I refer people who have complained to the state’s Air Quality Bureau. They deal with refineries as far as emissions and regulations go,” Eckstein said. “The handful of complaints over the years (have been) over a strong chemical smell from a refinery, for instance, but the state is in charge of that.”

An air quality index report for San Juan County on the Environmental Protection Agency’s website gives the county a “good” rating, with pollution in the air posing no threat to human health.

Despite that, McNall is adamant more should be done to regulate the county’s oil and gas industry to ensure a clean and safe county for its residents, present and future.

“It’s my purpose on the tour to show how people have to live among the wells and refineries and what that means to their pursuit of happiness and well-being,” she said. “In this county, big oil always reins supreme.”

from:    http://www.daily-times.com/farmington-news/ci_25454587/aztec-woman-says-her-toxic-tour-hell-points