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Episode: Don't Sabotage Your Company With This Oversight
Michael Hyatt: Hi, I'm Michael Hyatt.
Megan Hyatt Miller: And I'm Megan Hyatt Miller.
Michael: And this is Lead to Win, our weekly podcast to help you win at work and succeed at life. Today we're going to be talking about a topic that's going to connect two things you might not think naturally go together, but they do: the relationship of your personal development, or your personal growth, with your company's growth and development. If you're not growing, you can't lead a growing team. We're going to make that abundantly clear as we do a deep dive on that topic. So, Megan, welcome. What do you think about this topic?
Megan: Well, I love this topic. You and I are both very passionate about our own growth, the growth of our team members, the growth of our company, so this is near and dear to our hearts. One of the things we hear a lot from clients and prospective clients is that they want to see accelerated growth in their business. They want the results to be bigger and better and faster and all the things.
It's funny, because usually, what they go to is they need better business strategies. That's what they think at first blush, but actually, usually there's something in their own leadership that needs to grow that is going to be the accelerator in the future of their company. That's one of the things we spend a lot of time on with our clients to help them discover. I think this is kind of like getting another lever or another tool in your toolbox that enables you to move the needle, so I'm excited about it.
Michael: Well, this is congruent with our presupposition that everything starts with the leader. That's the first place to look: your own leadership. The company is never going to rise above or beyond your own capacity to lead. That's why this is important.
Megan: It's kind of good news, bad news.
Michael: Exactly.
Megan: The bad news is you're the problem. The good news is you're the solution.
Michael: That's right. You can fix it.
Megan: I know people listening are thinking, "Okay. I'm excited about this. I'm pumped about growth too," and you're probably wondering what are some resources you can tap into, which we'll talk in detail about more later. We actually have a free resource we want to tell you guys about, because you don't want to miss this.
Michael: We decided to put together a webinar. It's called Take Back the Future. We were very deliberate with that language. I think for most of us, we feel like our future, especially with the pandemic, somehow got outside of our control. Maybe we felt a sense of agency, and then we were blindsided by this big, bad, ugly thing we didn't have any control over, and for most of us, it felt like we lost our agency. We suddenly started drifting. We didn't really know how we could predict or control or influence the outcomes of our business and our personal lives.
What we're saying is it's time for that to stop. If 2021 is going to be different than 2020, it's going to be because we take back control, we take initiative, we begin to design the future. It's imperative that we do that, and this free webinar… I'm going to do a deep dive into that topic and help you do exactly that: to take back the future where you feel more in control, where you begin to become hopeful, and where you begin to dream again about what the future could be.
I don't know about you, Megan, but I think for us, for a lot of our clients, that was one of the casualties of 2020. Suddenly, those dreams evaporated. They just went into the ether, and people were just kind of watching TV and waiting for the next thing to happen. We want to get on the other side of that, and we want to help people do that. It begins with a shift in our thinking, which we're going to cover in the webinar.
Megan: Dad, I totally agree with that. One of the things that happens when we're in survival mode is we're very much in the present. We're hypervigilant to the present. It's very difficult to be in the future. It's funny. For a lot of us, the future became scary and not exciting, and what we're trying to remind people of and reenergize people about is the future is actually good news.
That's where all the possibility is. That's where all your potential lies, and really, that's where your agency and control lie. You don't have to be in control of everything to be in control of the most important things in your life. So, that's what this free training Take Back the Future is all about. If you'd like to join that, you can go to leadto.win/takeback.
Michael: There will also be a link in the show notes, so if you just want to go to that and click on it, you can register. Again, it's free. It's going to be about an hour and 15 minutes long, and I think it will really give you a sense of control and hope as you move into 2021.
So, I want to start with a story on this topic of personal growth. Several years ago, we sponsored a conference. We were at the Broadmoor hotel in Colorado Springs, and we had about 1,000 people in our audience there. It was a great conference. One of the speakers, who's a close friend of mine… We were talking about the year we had had. This was in December. We were looking back over the past year. She said she had had an incredible year, her best year ever. I said we kind of had had the same thing.
But then she said, "You know, I'm beginning to wonder… Do I need to grow this next year? Is it important for me to grow this next year?" She said, "I'm asking myself the question, 'When is enough enough?'" I sat there for a minute and thought about it, and I said, "You know, I hope that enough is never enough. Not because I need more stuff. I don't need more money, I don't need more toys, but I want to grow, and I think it's essential for my own personal development, for my team's dreams, for what I'm trying to accomplish in the world that I continue to grow."
It became very clear to me at that moment why growth was not just desirable but why it was an imperative if you're going to stay healthy, if your team is going to stay healthy, and if you're going to have that impact you want to have in the world. That's what we want to unpack in today's episode.
Megan: Dad, one of the most helpful perspectives on this comes from our friend John Maxwell, who has kind of coined this idea of the law of the lid, which says leadership ability is the lid that determines a person's level of effectiveness. In other words, your potential to achieve success is capped according to your ability to lead. Kind of like what I said at the beginning of the show. This is kind of a good news, bad news thing. The good news is if we are intentional about our personal growth, then the growth of our businesses is limitless to some degree.
Michael: Yeah, it totally is. The business can never rise above our level of leadership. The best way to hold your business back… If you want to put a lid on the business growth, if you don't want to scale, just stop growing personally. That's really what that whole idea is about. I think it's incredibly relevant to this discussion.
Megan: I think it is too. You and I had lunch yesterday, and we were talking about a certain change initiative I'm working on in the company that I'm trying to get people excited about and roll out. Of course, inevitably, anytime you roll out any change in an organization, there are challenges. There are practical challenges, there are mindset challenges…all kinds of things. You really challenged me. I was expressing my frustration with, like, "I just want people excited about this. I want to be successful at it."
You said to me something like, "Well, I think you have some leadership work to do." I was kind of like, "Oh man! In this moment, I kind of want to blame it on somebody else," but the truth is you were right. In this case, I had not communicated my vision for the project not only explicitly enough but frequently enough to enough people, answered enough questions… I hadn't done the visionary work at the level I needed to. I was focused on execution, but I had kind of missed completing the vision piece; therefore, I didn't have the alignment I needed to ultimately successfully execute.
I think that's a good example. For me to be successful and take the company somewhere we haven't been before, I have to grow in my own leadership. I have to become a better visionary leader, a better and more compelling communicator, better at answering people's objections and challenges, folding those in…all that kind of stuff. At this point, I have a decision to make. Am I going to take a stand for the change I want to see in our company around this issue or am I just going to say, "Well, I guess it's not going to happen," and, therefore, I'm choosing not to grow and the company won't grow as a result?
Michael: Exactly. Part of the reason I was able to identify that yesterday with you is because I had just had this conversation… I didn't share this with you yesterday, but I had just had this conversation with a leader last week in a one-on-one coaching session, where he was complaining about the fact he wasn't getting buy-in from his team for something he really wanted to make happen. It was a major, major change initiative.
He said, "I don't know if I need new people. I don't know if they're up to the task." I said, "Well, let me just give you another opinion." I said, "The question is: Are you up to the task? Because it sounds to me like you have to grow in your ability to sell that vision." I said, "I don't think this takes any special power, but, honestly, I don't even think you've tried." I'm not directing this to you, Megan. I was directing it to him.
I said, "I don't even think you've tried. You haven't expressed, for example, your why. You haven't done the work to come up with a compelling presentation, including slides, that would make this a no-brainer and would make it irresistible so that they automatically signed on. This is a selling thing, and you have to grow in your ability to sell."
Leaders, increasingly, as they take on new things, have to be able to sell it to other stakeholders if it's going to happen. In every business, you come to that point where you transition from you being able to make a decision and then it just happens… Maybe you're a solopreneur or maybe you have a very, very small company. But once you get a team, you can't use the old-fashioned, old-school command and control, because everybody on your team, at some level, is a volunteer.
Megan: It's so true. It's actually frustratingly true. The good old days when you could just wiggle your nose and make things happen sounds so great. It's much harder work. I really feel like, as leaders, we have this fork in the road of whether we are going to rise to the challenge and develop those skills of influence and persuasion and visioneering, which is hard work.
It's funny. Young leaders often think, "Man! If I could just do what the CEO is doing or what my direct supervisor is doing, that would be amazing. It's all strategy and vision," and whatever. As it turns out, that's pretty tough work. It's not what you think when you're looking from the outside in. But that's a decision to make. Are we going to grow and, therefore, the company can go to the next level or are we just going to be limited by the skills we have today? It's sort of like, "This is what I've got. It's fixed, and it's not going anywhere."
Michael: Before we get too much further, let's talk about the reasons for growth. We've talked about it in general terms, but what are some of the reasons to continue to grow? Like, I was telling my friend after that conference several years ago why I felt like it was important to grow, but let's talk about that and unpack it just a little bit. What are some of the reasons you see?
Megan: Well, to me, the most compelling reason I want our business to grow, like you were talking about in that conversation with our friend, is not just about the financial results. That's great. Certainly, there's nothing wrong with that. It's a lot to be excited about, but what gets me excited is who we're becoming along the way. For example, I've set a really big stretch goal for this year for the company, a financial goal. The truth is we don't need the extra money. It's not really mission critical that we have that.
However, the reason I ended up setting that goal was I knew the people who started to work on that goal back in April (we actually set it in April) would not be the same people who accomplished that goal on December 31, that by virtue of setting a goal that big, we would have to grow into it. We would have to become different people. We would have to innovate. We would have to reach for our potential and grow in areas that otherwise would be unattended, and that's what got me excited.
The thing I love more than anything about leading our team is discovering new and bigger levels of potential and helping people uncover those in themselves. There's nothing like a really aggressive growth goal to call things out of you that otherwise you would have no reason to do. It's kind of like you're just not going to get out of your comfort zone unless you have to, and that's what we kind of artificially create with a big goal or growth.
Michael: That's exactly right. I think that's why we've talked about so many times the value of setting your goals in the discomfort zone. All the really good stuff in life happens in the discomfort zone, when you move outside of your current capacity, your current ability, and you have to encounter new problems. You have to think differently. You have to achieve a breakthrough in some way, but you become a different person. Every time that happens, every time there's that breakthrough personally, the organization benefits.
So, yeah, I totally agree with that reason. I think another reason, too, is that your team members have goals. They have financial goals. They have goals in terms of what they want to be able to achieve in the world. Maybe they want to move more into their desire zone and do more of what they love. All that requires your company to grow. Your company has to grow so there are new opportunities for people to move into, and I love creating opportunity for people. So, that's another reason growth is imperative.
Then I would say also, finally, just your impact in the world. If you're doing something significant that you believe in, you really want to have an impact in the world. For most people today, and I know this is true for Millennials and those who are younger, it's not just enough to get a paycheck. They want to make a difference. They want to have a purpose that transcends that. Certainly, they want to make a paycheck, and as you said, there's nothing wrong with that, but I think it's not enough. So, to be able to expand the impact your company is having in the community means you have to be growing.
Megan: Okay. Let's talk about some of the biggest areas of growth we've seen over the years, maybe for the company, for ourselves. I think that would be helpful in illustrating what some of these areas look like. So, what do you think for you? What are some of the biggest areas you've grown?
Michael: Well, one of the biggest areas, frankly, is self-awareness. I was blissfully un-self-aware for most of my career, and then I had five daughters.
Megan: Parenting is so humbling.
Michael: It really is. What I realized was I wasn't always aware of how I was coming off, and I didn't always have a lot of people around me who would tell me. One of the biggest benefits of hiring a coach, as I did 20 years ago, was that it was somebody who was willing to tell me the hard truths about how I come across, how I communicate, what I create just by my leadership style, and all of that. I've told the story on this podcast before, but a simple thing of just not smiling led people to be fearful of encounters with me, because they assumed I was always angry or always frustrated, and it made people uncomfortable. I was completely unaware of it. By the way, learning how to smile is not as easy as it sounds.
Megan: No, it's not.
Michael: I had to have repeated reminders of that very thing. Or here was another one: cutting people off in conversations. Honestly, I'm still working at that. I would say that if our family has one cultural issue… We get really excited when we're together. We love being together, but we tend to talk over the top of each other.
Megan: We do sometimes.
Michael: And we don't let conversation happen like it should. But I think, again, our leadership goes to a next level when we become self-aware. I am totally a work in process. I still have so far to go. One of the reasons you and I both like assessments is because it gives us that sort of reflective gaze to see ourselves from the outside in and see how we're being perceived by other people.
Megan: I think that's so true, and I love a good assessment. Okay. So, something for me on this is mindset. This is something I've really been working on in the last several years. It's one of the things that I think most of us are also unconscious of. This would go into that big bucket of things we don't think about very much: our thinking.
What I've discovered is that when you're thinking about optimizing your performance, when you want to grow and show up as a leader in a different way, going to work on your thinking is one of the most powerful things you can do, because as we shared in one of our recent episodes, your thinking is what sets you up to take certain kinds of actions, which ultimately leads to predictable results based on those actions.
So, if you really want to have access to better solutions and more powerful or empowering actions, you have to get more empowering thinking. If you haven't had much exposure to this topic, you probably think your thinking is the same thing as the facts, that it's a fixed thing, that what you think about a situation is the same thing as the situation. Actually, it's not. It's the story you're telling yourself about a situation.
What I've found over the years is that there are ways of talking in our own head that are really empowering and lead to great actions that lead to great results, and there are really disempowering ways we can think that cause us to take actions that lead to results we don't like at all. If you're someone who, like most of us, has found yourself kind of scratching your head about "Ugh, I really don't like those results very much," the access point that can be the most powerful is in your thinking. So, that has been a huge area of growth for me over the last few years.
Michael: Okay. Another area of growth for me… And this sounds obvious. I probably should have learned this as a kid, but most kids don't learn this, and that is taking responsibility for my outcomes or my results. There's sort of this cultural tendency (and I certainly had this tendency individually) to find something or someone else to blame.
When I wasn't getting the results… It might be as general and as ambiguous as "Well, it's the economy." The reason my company is not growing or the reason we're not as profitable or the reason we didn't hit the budget was because of the economy or trends in our industry or something outside of my own control, instead of taking responsibility for myself and saying, "But wait a second. The environment is always going to be challenging. That's why leaders get paid: to navigate that and deliver results in spite of it."
So, learning to always start with myself and taking responsibility for the results and sort of do that inner work before I start pointing fingers or trying to solve problems outside of myself has been a huge learning for me, and it's a continual learning. I'll occasionally find myself even now where I'll be pointing to something outside of myself. The problem with that is when I point to something outside myself, all my power evaporates.
Megan: Right. It's not that there isn't responsibility outside of yourself. There is. It's not that we're doing some kind of masochistic, you know, "I'm always wrong, and everything is my fault" kind of perspective. It's not that at all. It's just that there's nothing you can do about other people, necessarily. You don't have direct control. You might have influence, but you don't have control.
Michael: That's right. If you start with yourself, that's one thing we pretty much have total control over. We can change our thinking. We can change our words. We can change our behaviors and get a different outcome as a result.
Megan: Another area for me that is more hard skills than soft skills is financial management. I don't have a financial background at all. In fact, I think my high school math teachers would be floored to know what I'm doing now, that I spend a lot of time in spreadsheets and math and all the things, but I really had to learn that. I jokingly say I have an MBA that was homeschooled. I've just kind of learned in real time on the job. It has been an awesome learning experience.
I have loved, loved, loved learning the financial part of our business. I really enjoy that part of my work, surprisingly, if you would have asked me 10 years ago if I would have loved it, but that's an area where it was really critical for me to grow if I was going to lead our business into the future. I had to become conversant financially. I had to be able to understand all of the financial aspects so I could lead our CFO and other members of our finance team. Anyway, I think that has been a really neat part of the growth I've had over the last 10 or so years, and I hope to continue to develop in that area.
Michael: It just goes to show you that you can learn almost anything. You can figure it out. Okay. So, what do you think are the greatest obstacles to a leader's growth?
Megan: This is such a good question. I think the biggest obstacle is our own mindset.
Michael: Ooh, that's good.
Megan: Our thinking gets in the way of our growth all the time. What we think is possible to learn or what we think is necessary to learn, which is based on our assumptions about the world, can help us or hurt us. For example, if you assume you can't learn something because you don't have a degree in it or you don't have formal education or you weren't good at it previously, like in my situation with the financial management…
I don't have a financial background. I was not good at math in school. If I just thought, "Well, I could never be CEO of a company because I'm not good at math…" As it turns out, I'm actually pretty darn good at math. It just needs to be in a spreadsheet. That was the missing piece for me growing up. What you think is possible can really help you or hurt you.
Michael: Another obstacle is… This is kind of a mindset issue, but a lot of leaders feel like they don't have time.
Megan: Oh yeah. That's a good one.
Michael: "I'm so busy running the business there's no time for personal or professional development." Well, as Daniel Harkavy and I say in the book Living Forward, what gets scheduled gets done. You're never going to suddenly one afternoon say, "Hey, I have an hour's free time, so I think I'll engage in some personal or professional development." It doesn't work that way.
But when you put it on your calendar, when you highly value it and treat that commitment like you would treat any other commitment and really make time for it, then all of a sudden, all kinds of things can become possible. It doesn't mean you have to stop everything, leave for a one-week seminar, and engage in personal and professional development, though I've done that in the past, you've done that in the past, and that's a great way to do it, but it can be incremental.
It could be as simple as… Like right now, I'm taking about 45 minutes every morning as part of my morning routine to read. This is a new thing I just… I've done this in the past before, but I just reengaged with this, reading a book, and I'm moving steadily through the book I'm reading right now. So, it can be done incrementally, but just an hour here, an hour there… Those things stack up and really add up.
Megan: Okay. I have to tell you about my experience with coaching, because this is exactly why I have hired a coach, I'm a part of a coaching program, and it has been super valuable for me. My day-to-day work in Michael Hyatt & Company has a lot of operational focus. It's very busy. I'm in meetings all the time. I'm not sitting around in a reflective place very often. That's not the nature of my work. In other words, personal and professional development is not going to fit easily into my workday or the normal flow of what I'm doing in a given week.
What I have found, though, is that if I schedule it… To your point of if you schedule it, it gets done. By being in a coaching program where I have at least quarterly, if not monthly, commitments or workshops or intensives I'm a part of, that's like a date with myself. Because I've invested significantly… The coaching program I'm a part of is about $35,000 a year, so it's a big, big investment. Because of that, I'm not missing those meetings. We schedule around those so there's no way I'm going to miss it. I'm there. I'm fully present. I'm attentive. It has been virtual, of course, for quite a while now, but I clear my calendar when I do that.
Every single time, when I show up to those meetings, I have some kind of amazing breakthrough. I have some area of my leadership that I discover I have the opportunity to grow in or some other kind of opportunity. It is so valuable, but if it wasn't on my calendar, if I just said, "Well, I'll just do that in an independent study sort of way," it would be so much harder to do that in the midst of my busy life. I've kind of automated it, though, by joining a program. It just shows up on my calendar, and I know I have to be there. My assistant has already blocked the time, and I go.
Michael: The benefit is the company continues to grow, because you're bringing back from those sessions solutions, insights, breakthrough ideas that make a tangible difference in this business.
Megan: We're on track to have our best year ever in the middle of a pandemic with many pivots we've had to make. It has not been an easy year. It has been a very challenging year, but we're on track for our best year ever. I think that is a direct result of my commitment to grow and set that time aside and then come back and have new resources to pour into the team.
We didn't really talk about this in terms of what the benefits of growth are, but the challenges we're facing as leaders today are different and bigger than they were two years ago or five years ago or ten years ago. The solutions we need are different. If we're not growing, we don't have anything to bring back that's fresh to meet those challenges.
That's one of the things I feel like is so valuable about making this commitment to your growth and, especially, coaching as a solution for that. I can guarantee that at least four times a year I'm going to come back with a fresh haul from the store. I'm going to have fresh things to bring to the team, fresh perspective, a fresh way of looking at the problems and opportunities we're facing, so that I have something to contribute. I think that's really valuable.
Michael: Yeah. And if your business is growing (I've said this to our entire team before), you have to grow as well. You can't be the same person next year that you are this year, because if your business is growing, there are going to be new problems, new challenges, new obstacles you have to overcome. You can't afford to just tread water or get comfortable with the status quo. You might be able to do that in some jobs, but if you want to be part of a growing company and you want growth for your company, you have to do the work of getting in the discomfort zone first if you're going to bring your company along.
Megan: We're at the part of the year where we're all… If you're on a traditional calendar fiscal year, you're probably finishing up your budget. Maybe it's already done for next year. You have some idea of the revenue you're going to project in 2021. If you think about what that is compared to this year, what the growth percentage is, and then you ask yourself, "What kind of leader is going to make that 2021 number possible?" and then you ask yourself, "How is that different from the person who's sitting in my seat today?" that's a good way to think about what your growth trajectory needs to look like.
When I think about that for our company, we're projecting some significant growth next year. There are some specific ways I'm going to need to grow in order to meet those challenges, especially as we continue in a primarily remote work environment, that I have to attend to or we're not going to get there.
Michael: This, I think, is a fitting metaphor. I was doing a project recently. It was a home project, and it was in the garage. It was involving tools I didn't have, and I had to go to Home Depot and buy some tools I didn't have for this particular electrical job I wanted to do. That's kind of the same thing here. You have a project where you want to build 2021 to be a different year than 2020. It may require that you get different tools. You have to have a different tool belt altogether.
I think this is an appropriate segue to talk about an action plan. Where do you get started for growth? You and I have identified three steps here. They're really simple but just kind of a takeaway for this episode. So, let's go through those one at a time.
Megan: The first is to identify where you need to grow. When I was just talking about that idea of looking ahead to 2021 and what you want to accomplish and what that leader looks like and how that is different from the leader you are now… That's a good "back of the napkin" diagnostic to understand what some of your growth edges need to be, where you need to be focused.
Michael: That's best understood in view of a goal or in view of a future you're trying to create.
Megan: Exactly. Which kind of sets us up for the second takeaway, which is to set goals. Do you want to talk about that?
Michael: Yeah. Setting goals is how we create the future. That's why we harp on it over and over again. It's why I have a course called Your Best Year Ever. It's why I've done a book on that topic, and that's why, by the way, we're doing that free webinar Take Back Your Future. Goal setting is a way we begin to imagine and make what is kind of not concrete concrete and visible so we can tackle it.
Setting goals is not just some productivity geek thing, some high-achiever thing. No. It's how anybody creates the future. Whether you're the president of a country or you're the president of an organization or you're leading a department or you're just trying to lead your family better, setting some goals is a way to get clear about the future you want to create.
Megan: Just a reminder, if you want to join that webinar, again, it's free. You can just go to leadto.win/takeback.
Michael: Okay. Let's go to the third one. What's the third and final step here?
Megan: The third and final step is to fast-track your growth with a coach. This is kind of my favorite one, because I think this is where, personally, I've seen the greatest gains. The biggest ROI, so to speak, has been in hiring a coach. I've had a coach for quite a while now…different coaches, actually, over the years. I think a coach is the best way to go farther faster. If you're trying to accelerate your growth…you don't want to go through the school of hard knocks and trial and error and all that kind of stuff…the best thing you can do is to find somebody who has been where you want to go and have them advising and coaching you.
That's exactly why we developed our BusinessAccelerator coaching program, for that exact reason, because we thought, "Man, we have learned so much about scaling high-growth businesses, and we want to help our clients get to where we've gotten to and beyond without the mistakes and the pain along the way." They can circumvent a lot of that through the coaching process.
Michael: Yes. I think sometimes people feel like they can't afford a coach, and I just want to speak to that for a moment. I probably spent two years before I hired a coach 20 years ago thinking, "I can't afford that. I can't afford it." But here's what I didn't realize and what I understand fully now: there's a cost to not having a coach. In fact, it's very expensive. Here's what it means. It means it's going to take longer to get the results you want. You're going to have to go down more blind alleys, cul-de-sacs, dead ends, and sort of trial-and-error figure it out. That's very expensive.
So, there's a cost to not getting a coach. And a coach can be simple. It doesn't even have to be becoming part of a coaching program. Whether it's a podcast or going to YouTube… Oh my gosh! The things you can learn on YouTube today. There's almost nothing you can't figure out on YouTube. Ultimately, I think the in-person coaching is the best thing, but if you can't afford that, don't just hold coaching at arm's length and think you can't do it. There are all kinds of levels of coaching you could engage if you want to go farther faster.
Megan: Yeah. The big idea is that somewhere someone knows how to do the thing you don't know how to do today but you need to learn, and that's really where coaching comes in, whether it's formal coaching, executive coaching, group coaching, one-on-one coaching, those kinds of things, like what we offer with BusinessAccelerator for business owners and senior executives, or something that's maybe less traditional if that's not where you are in your life right now. There are so many options. In fact, it has never been a better time to find a coach and accelerate your results and your growth than it is right now.
Michael: Again, just to summarize, when leaders grow, companies grow, and you can take three steps to get there to really grow. First, identify where you need to go; secondly, set goals; and thirdly, fast-track it with a coach. Megan, any final thoughts?
Megan: The thing I love about this topic and highlighting the idea of growth is that growth is its own reward. I mean, sure, bigger results in our businesses and in our work are awesome, but making meaningful progress toward a goal or something you care about is where happiness comes from. It's not actually achieving the goal. It's what happens on the way to the goal, and that's what we're advocating for here. The steps we've given hopefully break this down and make it really practical. I would just encourage you guys to jump on it and do it. Make friends with growth. It's awesome.
Michael: Excellent. Megan, thanks for joining me in this conversation. Thank you, guys, for listening. I hope it was helpful. Until next time, lead to win.


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Q: SQL BETWEEN doesn't SELECT given price range from 2 input filed unable to SELECT db row from price between entered field, i tried with below code when i entered price range for 5000 to 8800 it selects all db row from price with first no.5 and 8.
can some one explain whats wrong or do i need any change in code.
SQL
`prs` varchar(255) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',

HTML
<input type="text" id="minimum_price" class="form-control">
<input type="text" id="maximum_price" class="form-control">
<input type="submit" class="filter_all">

$(document).ready(function () {
            filter_data();
            function filter_data() {
                $('.filter_data');
                var action = 'fetch_data';
                var minimum_price = $('#minimum_price').val();
                var maximum_price = $('#maximum_price').val();
                $.ajax({
                    url: "fetch.php",
                    method: "POST",
                    data: {
                        action: action,
                        minimum_price: minimum_price,
                        maximum_price: maximum_price
                    },
                    success: function (data) {
                        $('.filter_data').html(data);
                    }
                });
            }
            function get_filter(class_name) {
                var filter = [];
                $('.' + class_name + ':checked').each(function () {
                    filter.push($(this).val());
                });
                return filter;
            }
            $('.filter_all').click(function () {
                filter_data();
            });
        });

PHP
if (isset($_POST["action"])) {
  $query = "SELECT * FROM allpostdata WHERE sts = '1' ";

  if (isset($_POST["minimum_price"], $_POST["maximum_price"]) && !empty($_POST["minimum_price"]) && !empty($_POST["maximum_price"])) {
    $query .= "
     AND prs BETWEEN '" . $_POST["minimum_price"] . "' AND '" . $_POST["maximum_price"] . "'
    ";
}

Result

A: Your column prs is a varchar column (i.e. it stores text), and is not a numeric column (e.g. int or money). So the database software is performing a lexicographical comparison, not a numeric ordering.

*

*Change your database design to store money/currency values using money or as int cents/pennies.

*

*Do not use floating-point types (like real, float, double, etc) to store monetary values because they are imprecise (read up on how IEEE-754 works).

*Also, as stated, your code is wide-open to SQL Injection attacks. Read here: What is SQL injection? and How does the SQL injection from the "Bobby Tables" XKCD comic work?

*Also, I recommend avoiding the x BETWEEN y AND z operator because of these reasons:

*

*The meaning of AND in BETWEEN is different to the AND logical operator which means you need to carefully format your code so it's readable so people don't confuse the semantics of AND, especially when using a non-trivial expression for y or z.

*It's not immediately obvious if the BETWEEN operator is using inclusive or exclusive bounds.

*If any of the 3 values can be NULL then you need to use separate IS NULL comparisons anyway, which results in a hideous query.

*So always using explicit y <= x AND x < z is almost always a better idea IMO.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Mongol Rally
A rally car in Mongolia
The Mongol Rally is an intercontinental car rally that begins in Europe and ends in Ulan Ude, Russia. The rally originally ended in Ulan Bator, Mongolia. However, to avoid punitive costs and taxes associated with vehicle imports and disposal, the rally now passes through Mongolia and ends in Ulan Ude. The principal launch is from Goodwood Circuit in the United Kingdom, with subsidiary starting points in the Czech Republic. It is described as the "Greatest Adventure in the World" and sees on average a 70% completion rate[according to whom?]. There are three fundamental Rules of the Rally:
Rally vehicles have a 1000cc engine limit
Rally teams are unsupported
Rally teams need to raise at least £1000 for charity
The organizers ("The Adventurists") are careful to point out that racing on highways is illegal. There are other differences from mainstream rallies, particularly the fact that no support team is provided and no other arrangements are made such as for accommodation, maintenance, or fuel.
3.1 Motorcycles
3.2 Other vehicles
3.3 After the rally
5 Entry fee
5.1 History of the fee
6 Organizers
7 Sponsorship and TV coverage
9 Casualties
The inaugural rally took place in 2004, in which 6 teams started and 4 completed the course. The second rally, in 2005, was entered by 43 teams, and 18 automobiles arrived intact in Ulan Bator. The 2006 Rally began on 22 July with 167 cars setting off. 117 teams made it to Ulan Bator.[1]
Mongol Rally 2017 car on the street of Baku, Azerbaijan.
The Mongol Rally was run as a charity event from 2004 to 2006 with all of the proceeds from the entry fees used to organise the event with the remaining donated to charity. This changed from 2007 as the event is now organised by the League of Adventurists International Ltd, a privately owned profit making UK company.[2] However, the participants continue to raise money for charities through sponsorship.
The 2007 rally left Hyde Park, London, on 21 July and was limited to 200 teams.[3] Registration for 2007 was far more popular than the organisers could have foreseen, with the first 100 places allocated in 22 seconds. Due to this popularity, the final 50 places were awarded on the result of a ballot.[4] In 2007, places were awarded for 2008 in two sign ups with places assigned on 1 November and 7 November.[5] The entry fee was £650 per team.[6] The main British starting point moved from Hyde Park, London, to Goodwood in West Sussex for the 2009 to 2012 events. Cars lapped the circuit in procession before departing. In 2013 the launch was from Bodiam Castle in Sussex and in 2014 it returned to London, launching from Battersea Park.
Routes[edit]
Typical Mongolian road.
There are an array of suggested routes that teams may take.[7] After setting off from Goodwood or one of the other Western European start points (including France, Italy, and Spain), participants then generally proceed to a launch party in Prague where they converge. Typical routes then head for Moscow, Kiev or Istanbul, though teams have travelled as far north as the Arctic Circle and as far south as Iran, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan. Teams taking the Ukraine/Russia route or the more southerly Turkey and Iran route often converge at Samarkand, Uzbekistan before proceeding north-east for Mongolia.[8]
Improvised recovery of an ambulance during the 2010 rally
The final leg of the rally takes surviving vehicles into Mongolia and on to finish back in Russia in Ulan-Ude. None of the available routes is comfortable or safe: damage to cars, robberies and minor injuries are common. Year on year as the rally gains popularity, more and more car accidents occur and many participants require hospital treatment. On 6 August 2010, one British participant died and one other team mate was seriously hurt after a road accident in Iran (near the border between Iran and Turkmenistan).
Depending on the route taken, the total distance driven is around eight to ten thousand miles (approximately thirteen to sixteen thousand kilometres) and most teams complete the rally within three to four weeks.[9]
The most countries ever passed through on the Mongol Rally is currently 41, done in 2018 by an Australian team, Destined to Flail.
Vehicles[edit]
Mini with red telephone box embarking on the 2008 rally
The original rules stated cars should be under 1000cc with no age limit. In 2009 Mongolian import restrictions meant that vehicles must be less than 10 years old and the engine limit was raised to 1200cc to account for the difficulty in finding modern cars under 1000cc. In 2013 Mongolian import restrictions meant that vehicles had to be less than 5 years old.
Because vehicles less than 5 years old are outside the budget of many people in 2014 the rules were 'devolved' it was decided that cars of any age would be allowed on the Rally but they must be removed from Mongolia after the event. Without the import restrictions the engine size limit has reverted to 1000cc.
Motorcycles[edit]
Motorcycles and scooters of up to 150cc are permitted on the Rally.[10]
Other vehicles[edit]
Comedy vehicles have always been welcome on the rally, but from 2010 to 2013 if they were over 1200cc or over 9 years old they needed to be removed after the Rally. From 2006 to 2012 emergency service vehicles were accepted for donation in Mongolia if they were in good condition, but in 2013 it was decided that Mongolia had no longer any practical need for these vehicles as it had begun to get new emergency vehicles from Japan and Korea.
After the rally[edit]
Some of the cars do not make it to Mongolia; they are sold when they break down, or are left behind due to time pressure.[9] They may not be simply abandoned without the participants responsible losing a deposit lodged with the organisers. Previous rally vehicles can now be found operating throughout Central Asia thanks to enterprising local mechanics who have repaired abandoned vehicles.
A Škoda S110 used by Škoda Power Turbo Racing Team in the 2006 rally. A typical entrant prior to the 2009 rule change regarding age
While the cars were imported to Mongolia and donated or sold for charity until 2013, in 2014 all Mongol Rally cars were shipped or driven back to Europe. The shipped cars were either collected by their owners or scrapped.
Prior to 2014 the organisers made arrangements for the cars to be imported into Mongolia without import duties. From 2004-06 they made use of a standard procedure used by non-profit making organisations, charities, and non-governmental organisations in Mongolia that provides exemption from the most significant taxes levied on older vehicles. Under Mongolian law the importing organization in Mongolia was then prevented from selling the vehicle for 3 years. Since 2007 the organizers had a special agreement with the Mongolian government.[8] The cars will be auctioned and the money raised donated to a project as chosen by the drivers of each car.[11]
There were many organizations in Mongolia who were grateful for the vehicles; furthermore, the low cost of labour in Mongolia made it economical to repair and run old cars that would be scrapped in Europe. Nevertheless, due to the concerns, the organizers of the Rally stipulated in the contract with teams in 2006 that they should not remove components from the car, such as the rear seats, to ensure that the vehicles remained useful and achieved a reasonable return at auction.
Teams[edit]
On average, between 250 and 300 teams enter the rally annually. Most teams have 2-4 people.
Entry fee[edit]
History of the fee[edit]
In 2004 there was no entry fee, although the 6 teams had to raise a minimum of £500 each, to be paid directly to that year's rally charity Send a Cow.[12] In 2005, an entry fee of £50 per person was paid to the organisers to cover the expenses of the rally. Teams were also required to raise a minimum charity donation of £1000 per team split equally and paid directly to the chosen Charities Send a Cow and Save the Children. In 2006, the entry fee payable to the organisers was increased to £227. Teams were required to raise a minimum of £1000 per team: £250 payable to Send a Cow with the remaining £750 payable to either Mercy Corps, CAMDA, Wild Cru or the Christina Noble Children's Foundation.[13] In 2006, the teams taking part in the Rally together raised in excess of £200,000 for the Rally charities.[1]
Since 2009 the entry fee has been set at £650, with an additional minimum charity donation set at £1000 per vehicle and a vehicle deposit of £500–repayable providing the vehicle is not dumped anywhere en route.[14][6]
Organizers[edit]
The Mongol Rally is now organized by the company set up by the founder, Tom Morgan, called The League of Adventurists International Limited[15] (number 05995303) incorporated on 10 November 2006.
Sponsorship and TV coverage[edit]
On the 2006 rally a number of TV crews accompanied teams along the route. The 2006 event was also sponsored by .travel with the sponsorship money going towards the cost of organising the event. The Expedia Let Yourself Go Team were also featured on the Expedia website.[16] The Mongolian Taxi Service team appeared on the Fifth Gear motoring program as part of a feature on the toughness of the Daihatsu Charade, inspired by their own Charade completing the rally entirely unscathed.
Jack Osbourne, son of Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, took part in the 2007 rally with Amaryllis Knight,[17] the daughter of the former editor of The Economist and News Corporation director Andrew Knight, in a 1991 750cc Fiat Panda; their journey was aired on a television show named "Jack Osbourne, Mongol Rally".[18]
In 2009, rallier Joe Sabia created Tupac in Kazakhstan, which pieced together dozens of Kazakhs to sing Changes by Tupac Shakur. The video is the most widely watched Mongol Rally video with over a million views (June 2013).
" In 2001 Mr Tom and Mr Joolz found themselves staring in awe at their slightly dishevelled Fiat 126 wondering what to do with it. After not very long they came up with the only sensible plan - to drive to the most ridiculous place they could think of. Mongolia was chosen, being 10 000 miles away as the drunk crow flies and sporting a fine selection of the world's worst roads it seemed perfect. So with no changes of clothes, a packet of cheap cigars and a hunting knife, they set forth. Although they didn't quite reach Mongolia because of visa and border trouble they enjoyed themselves so much that they swore to return and try again. From this premise the great Mongol Rally was born.[1] "
The idea later formed part of Tom Morgan's BA degree in Sculpture and was displayed at the Winchester School of Art BA Degree Show in 2003.[19]
Casualties[edit]
The rally website warns against the risks of this kind of adventure. An undisclosed number of racers have been injured since 2004.[20] In 2010 an adventurer was killed and one injured in an accident while crossing Iran.[21]
Mongolia charity rally
Plymouth-Banjul Challenge
Budapest-Bamako
Charity rally
Silk Road Race
^ a b c "Past rallies". League of Adventurists International Ltd. Archived from the original on 2007-12-09. Retrieved 2007-12-20.
^ "ShellLiveWIRE Webchat with the Adventurists". Shell Livewire. Archived from the original on 2011-07-19. Retrieved 2009-04-16.
^ "What's the rally about then?". League of Adventurists International Ltd. Archived from the original on 2007-12-24. Retrieved 2007-12-20.
^ "News". League of Adventurists International Ltd. Archived from the original on 2007-05-15. Retrieved 2007-12-20.
^ "Join the rally". League of Adventurists International Ltd. Archived from the original on 2007-12-08. Retrieved 2007-12-20.
^ a b "How much is this gonna cost me?". League of Adventurists International Ltd. Archived from the original on 2008-10-13. Retrieved 2008-10-15.
^ "The road to Mongolia". League of Adventurists International Ltd. Archived from the original on 2007-11-26. Retrieved 2007-12-20.
^ a b Eccleston, Paul (2007-07-17). "Green Team to compete in the Mongol Rally". The Telegraph. London. Retrieved 2008-07-10.
^ a b "Teachers' 10,000 mile geography lesson... in old black cab". Hornsey and Crouch End Journal. 2007-06-06. Retrieved 2008-07-10. [permanent dead link]
^ https://www.theadventurists.com/brochures/mongol-rally/
^ "Sixteen year-old Charade completes Mongol Rally". Easier Motoring. 2006-08-29. Retrieved 2008-07-10.
^ Morgan, Tom (2003-11-06). "The Mongol Rally". Wessex Scene. Archived from the original on April 25, 2010. Retrieved 2008-07-10.
^ Garnier, Eleanor (2006-08-01). "To Mongolia in a 2CV". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2007-12-20.
^ "Mongol Rally". The Adventurists. Retrieved 2019-05-28.
^ "The Adventurists - Welcome". League of Adventurists International Ltd. Retrieved 2007-12-20.
^ "The Mongol rally 2006". Expedia. Archived from the original on 2008-03-07. Retrieved 2007-12-20.
^ Amaryllis Knight
^ "Extreme Entertainment". Extreme Media Group. Archived from the original on 2007-10-16. Retrieved 2007-12-20.
^ "Winchester School of Art Degree Show 2003". University of Southampton. Archived from the original on 2006-10-03. Retrieved 2007-12-20.
^ Judd, Terri; Pierce, Anthony (2010-08-12). "Briton dies in Iran during charity car rally". The Independent. London.
^ "Briton dies as Mongol Rally team crashes in Iran". BBC News. 2010-08-11.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mongol Rally.
Official Mongol Rally website
Mongol Rally website - History of the rally
The Adventurists website
Report about the Mongol Rally on ARTE TV
Film on the 10th Anniversary Mongol Rally
Mongol Rally: Three Weeks into the Unknown
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mongol_Rally&oldid=899259800"
Rally competitions in Mongolia
Sport in Mongolia
Motorsport in Asia
Road rallying
Cross-border races
Articles with specifically marked weasel-worded phrases from October 2018

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The Polar Oceans are amongst the most important, but least understood environments on the planet. Declining sea ice, increasing temperatures, altered nutrient balance, and long term pollutants are affecting marine biological communities in the Arctic and beyond. The effects are felt in multiple ways, including species distribution, the structure and functioning of food webs and the underlying biogeochemical processes. Understanding these changes and how marine and coastal ecosystems are responding to them is a key to understanding global climate change processes and remains one of the crucial challenges for scientists, and demands further collaboration.
The UK, Norwegian and Russian Arctic research communities have a rich history of cooperation on bilateral and multilateral levels, with multiple recent examples of joint work on the research and education fronts, including joint expeditions and university-to-university partnerships. In July 2018, The State of the Polar Oceans 2018 – Making Sense of Our Changing World report was published - a joint project between the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). In the report scientists from leading UK and Norwegian research institutions highlighted the urgency to further investigate Polar Oceans to provide the understanding needed to help people live with and adapt to environmental change. UK and Norwegian Arctic scientists have been closely working within the framework of the NERC Changing Arctic Ocean programme. Recent UK-Russia Arctic cooperation featured a series of bilateral projects, workshops and conferences, with a special focus on early career links.
This trilateral side-event will showcase joint work by Norway, the UK and Russia to advance our understanding of the changing Arctic. The event will bring together scientists from the three countries involved in ongoing research programmes and projects on Arctic marine and coastal biodiversity. The session will provide a platform to explore what further collaborative research opportunities might look like and which existing frameworks could be used to deliver them.
A short panel discussion to look into ways to step up research cooperation, by building on the existing programmes and projects and exploring further opportunities.


text:
Education Reform tops youth poll for Youth Parliament Commons Debate
Wednesday, 19 October 2016 / Published in Press
978,216 young people vote to prioritise UK Youth Parliament debates with education, racism and religious discrimination, public transport, votes at 16, and the health service in the top five.
Members of Youth Parliament to take over Parliament on 11th November 2016.
Young people have prioritised a curriculum for life as a top priority in a ballot of 978,216 young people, aged 11-18, from across the country, on what should be debated by the UK Youth Parliament in the House of Commons on 11th November 2016. The annual Make Your Mark ballot, was championed by Members of Youth Parliament, volunteers across the country, local authorities and schools and prioritised five topics to be debated in the House of Commons.
The winning topic is a 'curriculum for life' which calls on schools to cover subjects such as finance, sex and relationship education and politics, to better prepare young people for life after school. Young people have been passionate about creating a curriculum for life for a number of years. It's evident that young people want citizenship education and PSHE's place in the curriculum to be prioritised. Both are important for young people's growth and development as they teach vital life skills and can be the first steps to engaging young people in political life.
This was followed in the poll by 'tackling racism and religious discrimination', 'transport', 'lowering the voting age to 16', and 'stopping cuts that affect the NHS.
Last year racism and religious discrimination, (particularly against people who are Muslim or Jewish), was one of the top issues and was subsequently voted to be the UK Youth Parliament national campaign for 2016 – 'Don't Hate, Educate!'
Local turnouts for Make Your Mark have been significant. Redbridge has climbed to the top in 2016 with a turnout of 75%, followed by Slough (67%) and Walsall with 66%. This year Connor Hill, Member of Youth Parliament for Dudley, returned the most ballots collecting 8,732, with Caitlin Cavanagh, Member of Youth Parliament for Liverpool returning 7,222, and Samantha-Rose Beacham, Member of Youth Parliament for Derbyshire collecting 6,563.
UK Youth Parliament House of Commons Sitting
Once again the UK Youth Parliament's House of Commons Sitting on Friday 11th November 2016 will be chaired by Rt. Hon. John Bercow MP, Speaker of the House of Commons who has chaired every debate in the House of Commons since their first sitting in 2009, as the only group other than MPs able to debate on the famous green benches. Up to 300 elected young representatives from all parts of the UK will take over the House of Commons, marking Armistice Day with a two-minute silence, before debating the five campaigns, and voting to choose their priorities for 2017. Finally, they will hear the Government's initial response from the Minister for Civil Society, Rob Wilson MP. This year there will be an additional debate on "a better democracy" where "more unites than divides us".
Connor Hill, Member of Youth Parliament for Dudley, who collected the most ballots said: "Make Your Mark simply proves that young people do want to engage with the political system and have their say on a nation scale. The amount of ballots collected is just something that never fails to amaze me and to have collected 978,216 ballots just makes me even more shocked! From this consultation, we can show that we are democratically campaigning for young people across the nation so that THEIR voices are heard effectively. The best part about such an astonishing figure is that it is all collected by the most inspiring volunteers who never cease to amaze me, and on behalf of everyone, we thank you for Making Your Mark. Thank you for empowering a generation."
Anna Barker, Chair, British Youth Council said: "Young people have been calling for a curriculum for life for a number of years, and it's now important politicians sit up and listen to our concerns! Thousands of young people have made it clear what they are passionate about and politicians around the country must ensure their views are heard and acted upon. Once again, young people have demonstrated that if you give them an authentic platform to have their say, they will take part in high numbers!"
Rob Wilson MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Civil Society, with responsibility for youth policy said: "Congratulations to the 978,216 young people who voted in this year's Make Your Mark Ballot, and to all the volunteers who have worked so hard to get such a great turnout. It's really important that young people engage in issues that are important to them and I'm really pleased that so many have chosen to do so through this year's ballot."
For media enquiries or to interview a Member(s) of Youth Parliament please contact:
Rhammel Afflick, Communications & Media Officer
rhammel.afflick@byc.org.uk | +44 (0)20 7250 8376 | +44 (0)79 85 260 337
UK Youth Parliament provides opportunities for 11-18 year olds to use their elected voice to bring about social change through meaningful representation and campaigning.
UK Youth Parliament is hosted and managed by the charity The British Youth Council. The British Youth Councilis the National Youth Council of the UK. A youth-led charity, we empower young people aged 25 and under to influence and inform the decisions that affect their lives. We support young people to get involved in their communities and democracy locally, nationally and internationally, making a difference as volunteers, campaigners, decision-makers and leaders.
The Make Your Mark campaign is proudly sponsored by NCS. National Citizen Service (NCS) is a once–in-a-lifetime opportunity open to 16 & 17 year olds across England and Northern Ireland. It is a unique two or three week full-time programme focused around fun and discovery, plus 30 hours committed to a community project that benefits both young people and society. On this government-backed programme, participants build skills for work and life, while taking on new challenges and adventures, making new friends, and contributing to their community.
The Make Your Mark took place from Friday 12th August and Wednesday 5th October 2016. Young people were able to take part in online and via various printed ballots.
Download a full breakdown of the Make Your Mark ballot, by region/ nation and local authority.
Please note: Whilst every effort is made to verify the accuracy of voting returns at the time of going to print, there are some late returns, spoilt ballots and unallocated votes that have not been recorded in this first edition of the report. So the final total is subject to change (increase) and an update circulated later in the year.
The Make Your Mark results report is proudly sponsored 1st IT. 1st IT offer flexible IT support and consultancy across a number of areas including, IT infrastructure set-up and maintenance, Microsoft Office 365, Googles Apps for Business, Hosted desktop, helpdesk support, hardware and software(free in most cases for registered charities) procurement, security, backup and disaster recovery. 1st IT is a specialist supplier of IT Services to the Education and Charity sector.
The following issues appeared on the ballot:
Votes at 16
A curriculum to prepare us for life.
First Aid Education for all young people.
Stop cuts that affect the NHS
Body image.
Fund out youth services, don't cut them.
Raising awareness of sexual harassment in schools.
Tackling racism and religious discrimination, particularly against people who are Muslim or Jewish.
Tagged under: British Youth Council, hate crime, Make Your Mark, racism, UK Youth Parliament, young people, youth
Racism and religious discrimination to be examined by Youth Select Committee
Youth Select Committee to focus on racism and religious discrimination
Britain's youth called to make their mark!


text:
WIRED Awake: 10 must-read articles for December 8
The world's biggest VR firms have formed a new association, a non-invasive light treatment shows promise against Alzheimer's
Thursday 8 December 2016
Your WIRED daily briefing. Today, the world's biggest VR firms have formed a new association, a non-invasive light treatment shows promise against Alzheimer's, SpaceX is now looking to January for its next launch and more.
Get WIRED Awake sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning by 8am. Click here to sign up to the WIRED Awake newsletter.
1. Major virtual reality firms form new global association
Major virtual reality hardware makers Acer, Google, HTC, Oculus, Samsung and Sony have teamed up to form the Global Virtual Reality Association (TechCrunch). The GVRA says that it will "promote responsible development and adoption of VR globally. Association members will develop and share best practices, conduct research, and bring the international VR community together as the technology progresses. The group will also serve a resource for consumers, policymakers, and industry interested in VR." Hopefully, the group effort will also help to ensure a maximum of inter-compatibility between VR standards and software in the future.
2. Light treatment could help Alzheimer's sufferers
Rodent trials have found that a new strobe light therapy may be effective in combatting Alzheimer's disease (BBC). The Massachusetts Institute of Technology team found that flashing a 40-flash-per-second strobe light into the eyes of mice engineered to have Alzheimer's-type damage in their brains stimulated immune cells to consume the harmful proteins that form the brain plaques associated with the disease. The researchers have formed a commercial company to develop the technology and say that, for human treatment "we can use a very low intensity, very ambient soft light. You can hardly see the flicker itself."
The ambitious science behind Elon Musk's Neuralink, explained
By Sabrina Weiss
3. SpaceX now looking to January for its next launch
SpaceX's first launch after the explosion of a Falcon 9 rocket during testing earlier this year is due to take place in January 2017 (Space.com). The company was recently reported to be planning a launch later this month, according to representatives of launch client Iridium Communications. However, SpaceX has now announced that: "We are finalizing the investigation into our September 1 anomaly and are working to complete the final steps necessary to safely and reliably return to flight, now in early January with the launch of Iridium-1. This allows for additional time to close-out vehicle preparations and complete extended testing to help ensure the highest possible level of mission assurance prior to launch."
4. Study: Polar bear numbers set to fall by a third
Climate change and its effect on the Arctic sea could cause polar bear numbers to fall by a third by 2050, according to worrying research by the US Fish and Wildlife Service in Anchorage, Alaska (WIRED). The study, led by Eric Regehr, shows there is a 70 per cent chance the global polar bear population, estimated at 26,000, will decline by more than 30 per cent over the next 35 years. As climate change causes global temperatures to increase and the polar ice caps to melt, it will affect the population numbers of the bears. They depend on sea ice to live, using it as a floating platform to hunt seals. The study combined 35 years of satellite data onArctic sea ice with all known shifts in 19 distinct polar bear groupings across four large 'eco-zones', scattered across the Arctic.
5. Cassini sends back images from Saturn's north pole
Nasa's Cassini probe has sent back new images of Saturn's north pole, using filters to pick up different wavelengths of light and penetrate different layers of the clouds at the pole (Popular Science). Cassini has, as of November 30, moved into the penultimate phase of its mission to Saturn, and is now in an orbit that grazes past the outer edges of the planet's rings and carries it above Saturn's northern hemisphere. Cassini's mission will end on September 15 next year, when it will dive into Saturn's atmosphere.
6. Neural nets can model a 3D face from a 2D photo
New research uses deep neural networks to model surprisingly accurate 3D faces from a normal 2D photograph (Gizmodo). The authors write that: "We present an inference framework based on deep neural networks for synthesizing photorealistic facial texture along with 3D geometry from a single unconstrained image. We can successfully digitize historic figures that are no longer available for scanning and produce high-fidelity facial texture maps with mesoscopic skin details." Their study produced uncannily accurate renderings of figures including Muhammed Ali, and the team suggests that the technology could in future be used by gamers to create realistic avatars of themselves.
7. John Deere has made its first fully electric tractor
US tractor maker John Deere, well known for its iconic green farming machines, has revealed the prototype of its first fully electric tractor (The Verge). The tractor, the product of John Deere's Sustainable Energy Supply for Agricultural Machinery project, is equipped with a massive 150kWh battery pack, has a range of 55 kilometres and a three hour charge time. The tractor is set to get its first outing at the Paris International Agribusiness Show in February 2017.
A high-tech butt plug is our best hope for understanding orgasms
By Matt Simon
8. BBC iPlayer to show Planet Earth II in 'unprecedented' Ultra HD
BBC iPlayer is branching out into Ultra HD broadcasts, and what better show to experiment on than its stunning Planet Earth II (WIRED). The experimental footage will be available in Ultra HD and Hybrid Log-Gamma (HLG) on compatible connected TVs from today until early next year. The experiment "is an early but important step toward streaming high-quality Ultra HD programmes on BBC iPlayer in the future," explained the BBC. HLG boosts the quality of the pixels, making images appear sharper with more detail in the shadows and dark areas of the picture, a wider range of colours, and more natural and brighter highlights. HLG was developed by BBC R&D and Japanese broadcaster NHK and was recently included in the International Telecommunication Union's (ITU) HDR-TV standard.
9. Nintendo Switch will reportedly play GameCube games
Multiple sources have informed Eurogamer that Nintendo's forthcoming Switch console will have a Virtual Console service capable of running GameCube games. So far, it's reportedly set to have Super Mario Sunshine, Luigi's Mansion and Super Smash Bros. Melee at launch. The Switch is a hybrid console that will have both wired and portable gaming capabilities. It's due out in March 2017.
10. Fan-run legacy World of Warcraft server rises from the ashes of Nostalrius
The data, code and user accounts from the Nostalrius World of Warcraft legacy fan server are coming back on December 19 in the form of The Elysium Project (Ars Technica). The Nostalrius fan project, which allowed WOW enthusiasts to play the classic version 1.12 of the game from 2006, was shut down following threatened legal action by Blizzard. The team behind it had been in talks with Blizzard in the hope of supporting the creation of official legacy servers, but Blizzard has reportedly failed to respond to emails on the subject since June. Elysium isn't run by the same people, but the Nostalrius team says that "this server shares the volunteer spirit and passion for the game we had. We wish them all the best, and hope that they will become a new home for the reunited Vanilla community."
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An eventful beginning, what would you do in my shoes?
From the beginning of this year i knew this would be a challenging year as i have an album to complete, but i was not prepared for what was in store in late February.
My partner had a seizure as he walked up our hard wooden stairs (no carpet) and fell the full way as he was fitting and crumpled with a loud bang into a ball at the bottom of the stairs. This was 11:30 in the evening on the 24th February.
When he has a seizure you never truly know what to expect, i.e., if he will have a long seizure or a short one, but this one was not only a seizure, this involved broken neck bones and head injuries.
He started to have seizures from the age of 17, but since being with him he only had jerks and restless sleep, until a few years ago when he had a full seizure which lasted over 6 minutes, then had another one a few hours later in the hospitable, where the neurologist strapped to machines and sedated him. We he had his first seizure in front of me i was completely confused, was this a stroke, a heart attack? He was turning blue and stopped breathing at one point. I cried down the phone to the emergency services, not knowing what to do. I never believed that this would happen to him, he had signs for a few years but nothing came of them as he often slept and was fine afterwards.
I did research into epilepsy and knew i needed to prepare, even though we were both confident that the medication he was and is taking would prevent them. How wrong we were. I am glad i researched as this help me to deal with this, even with the added trauma of the fall.
All you can really do is hold the person's head to stop them from rattling it on the floor and talk to them, saying their name over and over again, giving comforting words. He soon came around after a few minutes, which was a relief. I kept reassuring him that the ambulance was on its way and to not move. The blood was flowing from his head wounds and nose, so it was hard to stay calm inside seeing all the damage. However i did not show any panic and kept giving him warm smiles of reassurance.
He is now recovering and is making good progress. He needs to rest, which is not in his vocabulary as he is always on the move and does not know how to shut off from work and ambition. He had to wear a neck brace for a few weeks and now he has just a faint bruise around his eye with uncomfortable pain still from his neck and back, but this is only to be expected. The Doctor try to refrain from expressing panic, which he failed in doing so, as he confirmed that my partner was a hair's breath away from being permanently in a wheelchair. His Doctor told him he must have had an angel watching over him.
This is my life at the moment, watching and caring for my partner. I will not deny not to you or to myself that i am frustrated that i am not able to fully concentrate on my music at the moment. I am determined to remedy this as soon as i possibly can. I think this sounds very selfish, especially with all the recent trauma. I am still being tortured by the sounds of my partner crying out as he fell down the stairs and the bangs he made. Every time i leave him to shower for example i hear these sounds, i am not sure i will ever stop hearing those cries.
It is hard to carry on with my music, although some would say that this is the perfect time to write. I wrote a song called Always for my last album after his first seizure with me, my partner does not like to listen to this as it is about the possibility of losing him and i am asking him to always stay. Being on my guard to make sure that this does not happen again is, i know, holding me back, but i cannot and will not let my guard down again.
I have a song that i feel is the best song i have written. It is sat there as a file on my lap top in Logic pro X, waiting for my attention. It is strong, i know this already and this is a huge step for me to admit that any of my songs are strong or even good enough for others to listen to. My partner pushes me to be the person he knows i could be, as he sees me, even when i don't.
Now Spring is here, i hope this is the silver lining around this cloud, and the warmth of the sun will inspire me to breath again.
Charity single in aid of Save the children.
Thank you to everyone who has supported SGC in 2012. It has been an amazing year of finishing the debut album, reviews, interviews and making it available globally to you from iTunes, Amazon, HMV Digital, Spotify etc..
Here is a gift to you for your support ... Christmas Gift.
All the very best for 2013, hope all your dreams come true!
Please also let me know what you think of the new look, i personally believe it pulls the image more in line and represents the feel of the album.
The image, however, is mutating as i can never stay still for very long. The hair is now blue which will stay for a little while and the clothes will keep changing too.
The single 'Blind' will be out around November (date to be confirmed) along with a fantastic remix!
New review just sent to me by Carl Jenkinson of Hard Wired Magazine. He gives me 7/10 which is great for a debut album :) I've added a quote from this review to my 'MEDIA' page, which gives you a summary of what he believes about She's Got Claws. Click on the photo below to take you to the full review... do you agree with what he says?


-An overview of the increasing botnet threat and predictions for 2012.
-What this increasing threat means to business.
-How to approach the botnet threat and mitigate risk.
-Overview of anti-bot software solution from Check Point.


text:
Burns, Law join White Sox minor league staff
CHICAGO (AP) Former Chicago White Sox pitcher Britt Burns and outfielder Vance Law are returning to the organization as members of the minor league staff.
Burns, who played for the White Sox from 1978-85, is the new pitching coach at Double-A Birmingham. He replaces Bobby Thigpen, now Chicago's bullpen coach.
Burns has previously worked for the Houston, Miami and Detroit organizations.
Law was hired as special assistant to player development after serving as Brigham Young's coach from 2000-12. He played 11 seasons in the majors and was with the White Sox from 1982-84.
The White Sox announced several other moves Tuesday with their development staff, including hiring Doug Sisson as outfield/baserunning instructor. He takes over for Daryl Boston, now Chicago's first base coach.


text:
Coolpad said to be ODM for the T-Mobile Alchemy, potential follow-up to REVVL
Leaks of this phone have drawn comparisons to the Coolpad Defiant that was out earlier on this year. So, will we see this phone one-up the REVVL?
July revenue drop signals HTC U11 losing market grip
Published on 07 August 2017, 00:21 EDT
Coolpad,
dual camera,
Leaks,
ODM,
Renders,
REVVL,
T-Mobile may link up its first ODM phone in years, the REVVL due out August 10, with another one in the coming days and weeks. This one, as uncovered by Android Authority's source, appears to take a somewhat higher tack in class.
The Alchemy, said to be an effort by Chinese manufacturer Coolpad, features a dual-camera system on the rear — it'll be interesting to see how that gets spec'd out — and a broad expanse of gray with T-Mo magenta accents around the fingerprint sensor, camera module and tramp stamp. It appears to also have a rear-facing speaker, too. Other I/O includes a microUSB port, 3.5mm jack and microSD card slot. A relatively clean build of Android is hinted at, but the firmware could contain a bevy of extra T-Mobile apps you would not see pre-installed on other devices.
The source report draws plenty of comparisons to the budget-targeted Coolpad Defiant — it launched with T-Mobile on June 16 for about $100. By the way, if you want to read anything into the October 6 date on the screen, we should note that renders of the Defiant had the date at June 5 — an 11-day discrepancy.


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