The Hidden Brain by Shankar Vedantam Part 1

This book is subtitled: How Our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wages Wars and Save Our Lives.

Unfortunately, the book's subtitle is far from describing its actual contents, which are more along the lines of "Why a Journalist Thinks Psychology Supports the Democratic Party."

That we have unconscious (or subconscious) minds that influence our behavior in ways we often don't recognize or acknowledge is nothing new. Freud wrote about it explicitly in modern times. Artists and marketers have long known how to push our internal buttons without us understanding how.

The first sections tell some interesting stories which help to make the author's case that we're far more influenced by our unconscious than we wish to believe. Again, nothing really new.

Then he moves into tests showing that North American preschoolers are unconsciously prejudiced against blacks and for whites, despite all efforts by parents and teachers to eliminate such bias. And the author makes the case that their hidden minds, despite everything adults tell them, pick up on the fact that in their communities white people are the majority.

This raises lots of questions. Is it true of black children growing up in black neighborhoods where nearly everybody they meet is black?

And how about some cross-cultural studies? The author comes from India which, as he knows better than he admits, has far more diversity and cultural, racial, ethnic, caste and religious divisions -- and corresponding bias -- than the United States.

And then he moves into really dangerous ground -- asserting that science shows that political conservatism is positively correlated with unconscious racial bias. And he goes into depth on this issue as it related to the presidential race of 2008.

He tries to be careful, but he doesn't consider all the factors. Perhaps he has his own unconscious biases?

For example, he claims that white male union members supported Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984 because of innate racism. After all, he was against their economic interests.

Therefore, he assumes that the class warfare rhetoric of the Democratic Party is correct. He does not consider that Americans may prefer -- for rational reasons -- free enterprise to socialism.

While spending many pages on the racism of white people toward Barack Obama, he takes only one long paragraph to dismiss the argument that black people showed more racial bias in 2008 than whites, because they voted overwhelmingly for Obama, while whites split their votes between Obama and McCain. If millions of whites hadn't been willing -- despite what the author claims is their manifest unconscious racism -- to vote for Obama, he would have lost. The truth is, they considered the issues, and some decided Obama was the better candidate, not because or in spite of being black, but because of his stands.

The Enigma of the Mysterious Men in Black, Part 4

What is the bare naked truth behind the Men in Black? Will we ever find out for sure?

There is one idea that the whole MIB myth was created by the government, so that people would speak of these mysterious intimidators and their bizarre activities, their strange appearance and weird mannerisms, just so that the witnesses would appear pretty ridiculous, and in turn their UFO experiences would seem equally ridiculous. This is very possible, and as good a theory as any other.

Although these government masqueraders may be out to perpetrate this bizarre delusion, they are simultaneously succeeding at silencing most of the eyewitnesses of UFO phenomena. But when these people do speak out, they quite often appear as overly imaginative crackpots, which the government depends on.

Threats and Harassment

Mostly common ordinary people who have experienced UFO sightings or alien encounters have been pursued by the dark intruders. But even UFO investigators have been approached by MIBs and silenced, because the shadowy men have threatened these researchers in order to seize their studies and investigations of the UFO phenomena. Clearly, the MIBs are suppressing these UFO investigators just in case they might uncover something they're not supposed to know about -- but what?

Just what kind of threats have the MIBs imposed on people? And were they intentional or just empty threats? One report stated that the MIBs threatened a witness that he would be sent to prison for treason if he didn't comply. Sometimes they would act overly aggressive, but often they would just give ambiguous threats. But quite often, simply by the power and authority that they exuded, this seemed to be enough to scare the people to keep silent, and this may have been due to the MIBs hypnotic abilities. Sometimes they would bark some empty "or else!" threat and that would be enough to silence them. Although there were numerous such empty threats, more than likely it was the hypnotic spell they cast on their victims that subdued them into a state of fright which caused them to be silenced. Usually the frightened ones would never hear from these mysterious intruders again, but since it took several years for many of them to finally speak out, perhaps it took the mesmeric spell this long to finally fade off.

Government Secrets

Actually, it's not too hard to believe the US government would be involved with bizarre covert operations. In the mid-50s government experiments were conducted where minimal levels of radiation were released upon unsuspecting US citizens, supposedly for the benefit of medical knowledge, but clever cover-ups were initiated to hide the horrifying facts of these inhumane endeavors. Plus there have been the testing of nuclear weapons in supposedly remote locations where wandering people have been exposed. Not to mention that the government has assisted foreign factions that ended up becoming terrorists. So it's not really hard to believe the government could send mysterious agents to harass and silence eyewitnesses of various forms of UFO related phenomena.

But why all the silencing and the cover-ups? We may never have a complete answer, only vague ideas and cloudy speculations. But it makes you think that something pretty big is being concealed by various governments, such as the US, Great Britain, Australia in particular, if they have to go to extreme measures to silence witnesses. But then the meager information that is allowed to be released to the public, through controlled disclosures, is conducted very carefully. When you realize how ridiculous some of the information is we hear, it tends to makes a lot of people skeptical: little green men, invaders from Mars, photos of hubcaps or frisbees whizzing across the sky, pictures of a freaky looking alien shaking the hand of the President, women becoming pregnant after alien abductions, even ominous Men in Black coming to your door to scare you to death and shut you up, and other bizarre stories that we could toss in the category of UFO urban legends, which end up in the highly questionable tabloids. The government depends on these fabricated ridiculous ideas, which causes skepticism to flourish. I wonder, how many of these crazy ideas were deliberately concocted by the government? And how much of it is due to the wild imagination of the public? Obviously the government allows us to speculate and weave fantastic yarns ourselves that end up sounding more like science fiction then plausible fact. Although there is a substantial cult-following of UFO believers, the government has still succeeded at planting seeds of skepticism in the rest of the people.

To take a quote from Col. Philip J. Corso's book, The Day After Roswell, "The cover-up is the disclosure and the disclosure is the cover-up." In order to create an elaborate cover-up, you have to let some of the information leak out to the public and allow it to be exaggerated to the point of becoming ridiculous, because the public, with its wild imagination, is very good at that. Simply consider Hollywood and the wild science-fiction movies and television shows it has created over the years to feed our imagination even further. Then we say, "None of this is real, it's just fantasy." But, isn't there a grain of truth somewhere amidst all the fantasy? If we can just strip away the wild imagination and the flagrant speculations we have, will we ever see the bare naked truth? Will we finally see what's really going on?

Superior Customer Service: Seven Strategies for Success

In customer satisfaction research conducted in recent years, one theme has emerged: the essential importance of superior customer service. It has been shown that service-related attributes stand out even over attributes such as product quality in their importance to customers. While this is not universally the case, it warrants discussion about customer satisfaction measurement and how your company can translate the information to achieve higher customer satisfaction.

Most companies believe they provide a unique offering to their customers. In many industries, a company achieves this uniqueness by delivering customer service that is superior to its competitors. This leads us to the question, "What does superior customer service mean?" While the details are industry and even firm specific, the basic principles can be generalized. The following list provides a good starting point for thinking about customer service research and how it can help your company deliver superior service.

Seven Superior Service Strategies

Always try to exceed customer expectations. Whether customer expectations are set by the firm or by a competitor, exceeding these will reflect on your company's reputation and leave a lasting impression. To achieve this, you must have a strong understanding of customer needs as these dictate expectations. Conducting a customer service survey will provide you with a true understanding of these needs. Managing expectations up front sets the stage for you to exceed customer expectations later in the relationship. Track changes in customer expectations over time. Any successful company must learn to identify and adjust to changing trends, many of which will be reflected in customer expectations. Measure customer satisfaction with tracking research in order to monitor trends over time. Make a strong first impression. The first contact with a customer (the "moment of truth") often sets the tone for their lasting impression of the company. Customer Satisfaction Research shows that how a customer feels about a transaction tends to be more important than the product or service purchased. Be accessible, approachable, and responsive. If your customer finds it difficult to get in touch with someone at your company, they are less likely to do so, and the prospect of developing a strong, long-term relationship built on customer service satisfaction is greatly diminished. Make a habit of regularly reaching out to your customers to enhance customer service satisfaction and build lasting relationships. Determine how your well company delivers. Initial customer satisfaction research will provide a baseline against which to measure future improvement initiatives. Regularly conduct a service satisfaction survey to help identify specifically what attributes of the product/service are of greatest importance to customers, how the company performs against those attributes and how both change over time. Solicit input from your service personnel. Most public-contact employees are self-motivated to achieve customer service satisfaction. They are the best source for identifying roadblocks to superior service delivery (too much paperwork, difficult return policies, lack of information, interdepartmental miscommunication, inability to schedule service call times, etc.) and what upsets customers most. Spotlighting and addressing these issues not only improves customer service satisfaction but front-line employee attitudes as well. Improve employee satisfaction. Regularly conduct an employee attitude survey to measure and improve employee satisfaction. This will, in turn, have an impact on customer service satisfaction. More satisfied employees will produce higher quality products and provide better service to your customers.

These seven strategies provide a generalized approach for exceeding customer expectations and achieving superior service. An ongoing customer satisfaction research program will help to identify the issues facing your particular business, as well as their relative importance to customers. Through such a program, a full-service marketing research firm could help identify the specific improvements that will have the greatest impact on improving overall customer service satisfaction.

Computer Programming Languages Made Easy

Programming computer languages typically belong to any of the two types- compiled and interpreted. Compiled programming languages are implemented by using compilers, which are translators that generate machine code from source code. The compiler can translate the source code into intermediate form, which is known as byte code. In interpreted programming languages, the programs are not directly executed by the host CPU, but they are executed by a software program called interpreter.

It is advisable to start with programming for beginners like BASIC. There are several basic compilers and interpreters along with commercial programming like Visual Basics from Microsoft.

Though there are several types of BASIC, it is advisable to start with QBASIC. In order to run QBASIC, you need to get to DOS and then find out the icon "MS-DOS". Double click on it so that you can get "C://WINDOWS>. Type QBASIC and press the enter key. If you get a blue screen with something like guide, it means that you are ready to program.

If you want to learn programming with a simple syntax, you can go for LOGO. LOGO is used for functional programming. It is known for its turtle graphics, which is a method of programming vector graphics by using a cursor. You can build more complex shapes like squares, circles, triangles and other figures with the help of this language.

Though there are many good beginners programming languages, it is worth selecting C, C++, BASIC and Java, which are great for learning and support. C is a popular programming language that has facilities for structured programming. It features a static type system to prevent unintended operations. C++ is a compiled general purpose programming language and is an enhancement of the C programming language. It offers more than 30 operators, which cover basic arithmetic, comparisons, logical operations and manipulation. JAVA derives much of its syntax from C and C++. The Java applications are compiled to byte code and they can be run on any JAVA virtual machine, irrespective of the computer architecture. Modula 2 is a great teaching language that is ideal, if you want the power of C++ and the friendly syntax of BASIC.

It is advisable to have an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that supports several languages for the purpose of editing, in addition to indenting and syntax highlighting. Integrated Development Environment is also known as Integrated Debugging Environment that offers you some facilities for developing software applications. An IDE consists of a source code editor, a compiler interpreter, automation tools and debugger.

The source code editor is designed to edit the source code of the computer programs. It simplifies the process of inputting the source code, by auto completing and bracket matching functionalities. Build automation helps to compile source code into binary code. It runs tests and creates release notes. Debugger is used to test and debug other programs. It offers some sophisticated functions like running a program step by step and pausing the program to examine the present state.

When you are just getting started it is essential that you learn the basics of computer programming. This will enable you to gain a solid foundation upon which to build you knowledge and experience.

Softball Tips on How to Avoid the Most Common Softball Injuries

There is always the risk of injury when you're playing softball. That's because you are subjecting your body to extreme movements, perform repetitive physical activities, and there's always the chance of a collision between you and another player.

However, you can at least minimize your chances of getting injured, even if it is part of the risks of playing softball. It is all about playing smart, and knowing what to do and what to avoid. Let's deal with more specific softball tips in avoiding the most common softball injuries below.

Perform warm ups and cool downs

I'm sure you've heard this advice before, but the truth is that not everyone follows this. So let me reiterate it for you: do your warm ups and cool downs. Doing these will help ensure that your body is prepared to handle the activities you are going to do (in the case of warm ups), and that it returns to its normal levels after subjecting it to stress and fatigue (cooling down).

Perform dynamic warm ups before a game and save the static stretches once the game is over. What dynamic warm ups do is wake up the nerves in the muscles you'll use in playing softball, and loosens up the muscles to avoid injuries to pulled muscles.

Meanwhile, static stretches don't just help your body cool down but also minimizes the chances of injury in the long run.

Strength training

In order for your body to be resilient against injuries, you need to toughen it up. And what better way to do it than building up your muscles. I'm not talking about some random muscle here, though. I'm talking about the specific muscles that you will use most often when you play softball. Therefore, you need to strengthen muscles in your shoulders, wrists, arms, trunk and legs. The tougher your muscles in these areas are, the lower your risks are for overuse injuries.

Eating right and resting for recovery

You also need to give your body time to recover from the constant stress that you're subjecting it to every time you play softball or go to a training session. That said, you should give your body at least 48 hours in between training sessions for it to recover completely.

Then there's food. You need foods rich in protein to help repair torn muscles, and calcium for your bones. Soy-based products and meat products are always good sources of protein, while milk is by far the best source of calcium. If these foods aren't a part of your diet yet, then you're missing out on the benefits of having them on your plate.

Like strength training, resting your body and speeding up its recovery also helps in preventing overuse injuries.

Injuries will always be a part of the territory when you're playing softball. But again, it's all about minimizing your risks. And you do that by performing softball training warm ups and cool downs, strength training, and giving your body the time to recover. The combination of these things will help you avoid the most common softball-related injuries.

Detoxification Can Bring Out The Beauty In You

You are what you eat. Or more aptly, you are what is inside your gut. This adage is true and it does not only talk about fatal diseases like diabetes or any form of cancer; it also applies to keeping up a more attractive appearance and youthful skin.

Studies show that appearances on your skin like age or liver spots and dark patches are not only caused by over-exposure to sunlight or the aging process itself. Toxins or metabolic wastes in the body can severely damage your skin and result to the growth of unwanted blotches on it. This means, avoiding the harmful rays of the sun or applying layers upon layers of sunscreen does not guarantee a spot-free skin.

On top of this, the continuous deterioration of the environment has degraded the purity of the food that you eat, water you drink and even the air you breathe. Also, the fast pace that almost everyone is living in at this age forces people to make poor choices in their lifestyles; these choices have deep impacts on one's health and quality of skin. In other words, no one is spared from the ill-effects of toxins.

Nevertheless, there are ways to eliminate harmful wastes in your body. So, if you want to be healthy and minimize or get rid of your age spots, you can strive to cleanse your system of harmful toxins. And there is only one way to go about it; and it is appropriately called detoxification. This process simply calls for a number of changes in your diet so that you will be able to clean the organs and tissues in your body.

You have to remember that your body has its very own cleansing system; it is composed of the kidneys, lungs, liver and your bowels. However, due to the strain put on by unhealthy food choices and an increasingly polluted environment, your cleansing organs are having a hard time performing their functions. With detoxification, you are giving your system a big helping hand in taking out all the garbage in your body.

There are several ways or programs through which you can detoxify your body. But for the most basic detoxification, you have to begin incorporating changes to your diet. Eating raw vegetables and fruits for a few days is one of the more traditional types of cleansing your body.

As for your skin, your detoxification program should include certain items that promote the health of your skin. For instance, you can adopt a detoxification program that includes plenty of water or fresh and natural fruit juices. Since the quality of your skin depends a lot on the amount of moisture in it, drinking plenty of fluids during your detoxification is one way of ensuring a more radiant and youthful skin, minus blemishes.

Aside from being effective in flushing out toxins from the body, raw fruits and items like seaweeds are very abundant in minerals that can improve your skin. Just look at most women in Japan, where eating raw food is encouraged and seaweeds are a staple much like fries here in the US; you can hardly find a Japanese woman who does not have a silky and even-toned skin.

Truly, detoxification is important for the proper functioning of all the organs and tissues in the body. If you fail to flush out all the toxins in your system, you are risking your health and allowing unsightly spots to develop on your skin.

Indeed, maintaining supple and flawless skin should start from within. So, if you want to have that radiant skin no matter how old you are, you need to take a look at detoxification as a wise choice. You will also need the help of certified products like Lumnaderm to erase ugly blotches on your skin. For more details on how you can boost your chosen detoxification program in eliminating age spots, visit http://www.lumnaderm.com.

Environmental Impact Assessment - Effective Cost Management

The cost of carrying out an environmental impact assessment can be a significant part of the planning and design cost of a development project. Notoriously, the EIA costs are difficult to predict at the outset of the project. This uncertainty is mainly due to an initial lack of knowledge of the environmental baseline conditions on the development site. As the project progresses, site knowledge increases gradually and new costs may emerge while some risks may reduce. Particularly in the current economic climate, there is a need to have a clear understanding of the costs and the risks of the environmental impact assessment at an early stage in the project.

The first step to effective cost management of an environmental impact assessment is to carry out a thorough EIA scoping study. The outcome of the EIA scoping study should be a clear understanding of the basic site characteristics and the likely environmental risks and sensitivities. It should also provide a clear programme on how to address the issues that have been identified in the further environmental impact assessment.

Following a carefully undertaken EIA scoping study, uncertainties remain. These uncertainties are however much more manageable. For instance, during the EIA scoping study it was identified that no important archaeological features have been recorded in the wider area around a site. The following step that is proposed is to carry out a geophysical site survey. Depending on the outcome of the survey there may be a requirement to carry out an intrusive investigation in the form of an excavation.

There are three uncertainties that will determine the final cost for archaeological work as part of the environmental impact assessment. Firstly there is the uncertainty about the exact cost to carry out the geophysical survey. The error margin on this should be relatively small as it is a fairly defined activity. The second uncertainty relates to whether or not the results of the survey indicate the need of further work. This is a yes or no issue, where the uncertainty relates to the chance that further work is required. Finally, the third piece of uncertainty relates to the cost of the intrusive investigation should this be required.

A system that is based on the Monte Carlo cost forecasting system is ideally suited to deal with these kind of uncertainties. The outcome of the Monte Carlo cost forecasting system is typically a series of potential project costs together with the probability that each of these costs will not be exceeded. Thus, employing a combination of a rigorous EIA scoping study and the use of the Monte Carlo cost forecasting methodology are essential tools in the effective cost management of environmental impact assessments.

Acupoint Therapy Benefits For Helping Recovering Stroke Patients

There have been a number of studies conducted in China and Japan which showed that stroke patients who undergo acupuncture treatments not long after having a stroke are more likely to recover more of their affected faculties than others without the treatment. While acupuncture is not as mainstream in some parts of the world like the U.S., it is slowly becoming an accepted form of treatment. After all, the Chinese have followed the practice for thousands of years with success.

There are even personal portable devices that deliver acupoint therapy, emitting electromagnetic impulses to acupuncture points in your hands, thereby bypassing the thin, fine needles of traditional acupuncture. Stroke patients can benefit from this type of therapy.

Problems with Stroke Patients

A stroke is sometimes referred to as an attack on the brain. A blood clot basically blocks an artery, interrupting blood flow to portions of the brain. A blood vessel could also break, causing the same problem. When a stroke occurs, brain cells can die, creating brain damage. Unfortunately, the body functions that lie in those dying area are also affected and may become lost permanently. Memory, speech and movement are most often affected.

Some people do recover fully in time after a stroke while others may experience muscle weakness or minor speech or memory problems. Larger strokes may cause more profound damage such as losing the ability to speak or paralysis on one side of the body. In time, physical therapy and medications can help recover some physical ability. However, by introducing Chinese medicine like acupuncture soon after the stroke, patients may be able to greatly improve their chances of recovery. If patients are sensitive or squeamish about needles, acupoint therapy using electromagnetic wave impulses can be equally effective.

How Acupoint Therapy Works on Stroke Patients

The hand has six meridian points or pathways in which the body's life energy flows. Within these meridians, there is an intricate system of connections called acupoints (acupuncture points) which tie into various body functions and organs. With stroke patients, it is hard to keep circulation open, especially when some nerve pathways have closed down. By stimulating certain acupoints using electromagnetic wave impulses, stroke patients can increase circulation to the extremities, boosting mobility and easing pain and numbness.

Basically, this electronic form of acupuncture can ramp up endorphins in the body responsible for easing pain and helping the body relax. The nervous system can be specifically targeted with acupoint therapy, keeping pathways of the nerves open and the nerves firing. The electromagnetic wave impulses released through electronic acupuncture devices can also open blood vessels, providing better blood flow which in turn decreases the chances of blood clots and a repeat stroke performance.

Acupoint therapy is an excellent way to improve the quality life in stroke patients. While not a cure all, it is definitely one of the best ways to augment any treatment protocols the doctor prescribes.