Validate Electronic signature Word Myself
Make the most out of your eSignature workflows with airSlate SignNow
Extensive suite of eSignature tools
Robust integration and API capabilities
Advanced security and compliance
Various collaboration tools
Enjoyable and stress-free signing experience
Extensive support
How To Add Sign in eSignPay
Keep your eSignature workflows on track
Our user reviews speak for themselves
Validate Electronic signature Word Myself. Check out the most user-pleasant knowledge about airSlate SignNow. Deal with your whole papers digesting and revealing method digitally. Change from portable, pieces of paper-dependent and erroneous workflows to computerized, computerized and faultless. You can easily create, supply and indication any files on any device anyplace. Make sure that your essential enterprise circumstances don't fall over the top.
See how to Validate Electronic signature Word Myself. Keep to the simple information to get started:
- Build your airSlate SignNow bank account in click throughs or sign in together with your Facebook or Google accounts.
- Take advantage of the 30-time free trial or choose a costs plan that's perfect for you.
- Locate any legitimate format, build on-line fillable types and talk about them securely.
- Use superior characteristics to Validate Electronic signature Word Myself.
- Indicator, individualize putting your signature on order and accumulate in-individual signatures ten times quicker.
- Set auto reminders and get notices at each and every stage.
Moving your activities into airSlate SignNow is straightforward. What practices is a simple approach to Validate Electronic signature Word Myself, along with tips to keep your co-workers and associates for greater collaboration. Empower your staff with the best tools to remain along with company operations. Enhance efficiency and scale your business more quickly.
How it works
Rate your experience
-
Best ROI. Our customers achieve an average 7x ROI within the first six months.
-
Scales with your use cases. From SMBs to mid-market, airSlate SignNow delivers results for businesses of all sizes.
-
Intuitive UI and API. Sign and send documents from your apps in minutes.
A smarter way to work: —how to industry sign banking integrate
FAQs
-
How does it ‘feel’ to fly an F-35 compared to the aircraft it is replacing?
Major Morten “Dolby” Hanche is a pilot for the Royal Norwegian Air Force (Luftforsvaret) and has been providing updates on his experience with the F-35 on the Luftforsvaret’s “Kampflybloggen” (“Fighter Jet Blog”).For a bit of context; Norway currently flies the F-16 (the jet that the F-35 primarily replaces) and is procuring the F-35A (the Air Force / land variant replacing the F-16).Here is a post he wrote on the 2nd of June, 2017, translated via Google Translate:Norway's fifth F-35 landed at the Luke Air Force Base in Arozina May 25, 2017 11.13 local time. PHOTO: Luke Air Force BaseIn February, I was allowed to talk about F-35 during the annual Air Force Seminar at the Air War School in Trondheim. The order was F-35 and air-to-air roll. I have written a part about F-35 and air combat in other blog posts. This post is a customized version of the lecture I held in Trondheim, and it has a slightly different angle. Initially, I summarize the performance perspective before I go into the most important part of the article: How should the Defense use the F-35 in the air-to-air role? I think this is an important question, which we must have good and clear answers to. In a larger perspective, I do not think it's smart to try to distinguish the air-to-air role from air to hill. The point must be that the Armed Forces must have a plan for how to use the F-35. I will return to this in a later post.The term "fifth-level air defense" was repeated during the seminar. Even I'm a bit unsure of what it really means. Once I have used the phrase in the lecture, it was a very simple interpretation at the bottom: A "fifth generation air defense" is somewhat better - more effective - than we have today. Our academics can certainly elaborate on this in the future. Here you have talked:The king in the airI've used a lot about F-35 earlier. Last time I thought something about Air War College, my background was to have read specifications, test reports and have flown simulator. Then I stated that the machine was formidable. Now I have flown the machine for a year and I'm glad to say; What did I say? F-35 is the king in the air!I'll be a bit more precise: With full war equipment, my experience with F-35A is thatIt's easier to fly than F-16.It's faster than F-16.It has a longer range than F-16.It flies higher than F-16.It is more maneuverable than F-16.It finds opponents on a longer distance (than F-16 would have done).Opponents discover F-35 later than an F-16 would be found.And it looks tougher!So what? Is it relevant to compare with F-16? It is not very likely that we meet a hostile F-16. The reason I compare with F-16 is because I know F-16 because F-16 is a mid-to-tree example of a "fourth generation" fighter plane and because rated sources make it difficult to compare directly with more current threats there out.Let me give you some practical examples that I believe support my claims.Vingled crowWhen I took the F-35 in the air for the first time, I immediately noticed that the airplane was easy to fly. The impression has only been stronger since then. F-35 has a nice balance between soft and accurate response on one side, for example, when we fly in tight formation. On the other hand, the machine reacts quickly and violently when I need it, for example in close combat. In F-35, we sometimes prefer low-speed close combat because the F-35 can be reliably controlled at lower speeds than I am used to. Another side of the F-35 and ease of use is that it's easy to get up in the air and easy to land. This is especially evident when landing in sidewinds: F-16 is like a winged crow, which you have to guard all the way. In comparison, the F-35 almost feels like a train on rails.I live there and know what I'm talking about.Is it so important that the machine is easy to fly? Should not the pilots, with expensive education (and big ego) cope with a small challenge? It should be obvious that an airplane that is easy to use is safer to operate; The pilot gets more profits to plan ahead and can make better decisions. This is especially important with the F-35 since there are no two-seater seats for use in exercise. There will never be an instructor in a backseat, ready to save a dangerous situation. Good flying qualities are therefore a big advantage when we will bring fresh airplanes home from the summer of Arizona to a little worse and colder weather in a few years. (I live there and know what I am talking about).Supersonic speedMost importantly, however, is that a machine that is easy to use gives the flyer more profits to make good combat technical decisions. Good decisions needed to solve the assignment. In other words, we get more "tactical currency" out of the weapon platform when the pilot does not plunder with the plane.I want to tell you about another impression from my first flight in F-35, and that's the F-35 is a fast machine. The F-35 keeps effortlessly high speed. Unlike the F-16, this also applies to weapon loads. The machine is so "happy" that we need to make new F-35 pilots especially aware of this. The F-35 is upset if you do not follow. Therefore, it's not uncommon for a flyer without thinking it ends up in supersonic speed!In addition to being a fast machine, the F-35 is fast to accelerate - it accelerates well. It is clear in close combat. I can use the speed in exchange for a temporary, stronger swing when I maneuver compared to the opponent. Nonetheless, if I slam a little bit and give the plane a break, I quickly get back the speed. I can thus vary between crab and full sprint in a short period of time.With the F-35 you can vary between crab and full sprint in a short period of time. PHOTO: Torbjørn Kjosvold / Defense«El Gato»I have been introduced to "El Gato" during the fall when he learned to fly F-35 with us. "Gato" is an experienced F / A-18 pilot who has gone through the weapons schools of both the US Marine Corps and the US Navy, also known as Top Gun. Let me quote El Gato, after his first flight in F-35A: "... it flies like a hornet, but with four engines ...". (In comparison, the F-18 usually has two engines). Or to quote one of my Italian colleagues, after his first taste of F-35: "I did not think performance like this was possible." (So, in positive terms.)Is it important to fly quickly? Do not we have missiles flying quickly on our behalf? With an elongate country it is an advantage that we can keep high speed over a long period of time. We can fly from Ørland to Banak on the hour, and still have the opportunity to solve a mission. (We can not do that with F-16). Or, we can quickly be on the spot to help our colleagues on the hill or at sea.In addition, high speed and high altitude are important in air combat. For the same reason as spydkasters take slopes, we take a run-by-plane with the plane; We give the missile higher total energy, which means more range. More signNow means that it's even more difficult for the opponent to "turn" away when the shot comes."Dogfight"A controversial theme among (other) bloggers with strong opinions has been F-35 in close combat, or "dogfight". Many critics have been one-sided negative to F-35 in relation to air-to-air role, and especially in relation to close combat. I've read that F-35 is "a grape", "a turkey" and "a failure". (Ie, negative). I want to ask a counter-question? Is it relevant to talk about "dogfight"? I think many people exaggerate the importance of close combat. My experience is that "dogfight" rarely involves two planes that actively fight against each other. More often it is that a party has an overview while the other unsuspecting becomes a victim. The victim is shot down without trying for a defensive maneuver. I think we'd rarely be the victim with F-35 but rather the one who surprises the opponent.I think many people exaggerate the importance of close combat.Regardless of the background, let's assume that the "dogfight" is a fact. A year ago, we had so far begun to learn how we fought best match F-35. Now we have come a long way, and I have a different impression than the critics: I have found that F-35 is a maneuverable machine that causes serious trouble for F-16 and others when we meet in close combat. My experience is that it is easier to keep an offensive starting point, but also; that it's easier to turn a neutral or defensive starting point into offensive. What does this mean: If I were to be surprised at F-35, I still turn the fight to my advantage. If I find you first, the F-35 hangs like a coat and you do not get lost alive."You killed"I would like to emphasize an important difference from F-16 in this context. F-16 on the fly show is maneuverable and impressive, but F-16 with war equipment is "a beaten one". The F-35 on its side is maneuverable and fast also with war equipment. (The first time I flew with F-35 internal weapon load, I can honestly tell me I did not notice it on the machine.)A battlefield in the air is a dangerous arena, which we want to keep away. F-35's greatest strength is clear in the ability to find and kill others before they have the opportunity to take back. Nonetheless, if the missiles should fail, if I'm out of missiles or if the opponent has the perfect remedy; then I know that the F-35 is maneuverable and powerful enough to bite off in close combat as well as any other fighter plane out there."If I were to be surprised at F-35, I still turn the fight to my advantage. If I find you first, F-35 hangs like a coat and you do not get lost. "PHOTO: Torbjørn Kjosvold / Armed ForcesNinja in felt slippersBefore I go into the core of the lecture, I want to talk about low-key and sensors. Some have claimed that signature is almost something mythical, or at least a vulnerable concept, which at best has limited validity. My experience is something else. The reference is mainly to have flown to F-16 in scenarios where F-16 had Ground Control Intercept. What happens then? Well, for a long time, I know exactly where the formation with F-16 is and I have plenty of time to plan the attack. The F-16, on its part, relies on being led all the way back to us, whether they are able to take back. Nevertheless, the outcome is that all F-16 are shot down without fading off a single shot in our direction. There is nothing ridiculous about this. It's a completely uneven match. It is as though you were being attacked on the streets by a camouflage-guided ninja in filthy trousers, jumping out from behind a bush and striking a bat. It's rough, brutal and totally surprising. Another experience is that we manage to sneak out undetected past the formation with F-16, if we wish. I have taken myself a little while I "list" me past our opponents in this way. It gives a special sense of supremacy: knowing that I can shoot you now, or now, but I do not. At the same time as the opponent can not recover.It is as though you were being attacked on the streets by a camouflage-guided ninja in filthy trousers, jumping out from behind a bush and striking a bat.Is this just bargain or do I have a more important point? I think the combination of good sensors, low signature and high performance makes us better able to both solve the assignment and come home again. In other words, bag and bag! We get more "bang for the buck" with F-35 than with the F-16 (also) in the air-to-air role.A complex arenaBefore I move on, I warn against well-meaning critics its often binary interpretation: Air Combat is a complex arena. My experience is that the world is not black and white, that a single performance parameter, a single requirement specification or a loose extract of a test report does not tell the whole story and that human being is probably the most important factor. "It depends" is an answer I often hear in discussion with other pilots. There is more to say about the F-35 in the air-to-air role, but we have to take it to the bar (where unrestricted boasts belongs).I have tried to give you my user perspective on F-35. I hope I was clear that the F-35 is fatal in the air-to-air role. I'm sure (because I'm sure I would not like to meet F-35 in the air myself). Therefore, I also think the ordering of the subject was a bit frustrating: now it's time to believe us when over and over again, telling us that the F-35 is effective in the air-to-air role. We must move on in the debate and address the most important question; How should we choose to use F-35 in the counter-air role? As long as our political and military leaders do not have a complete answer to this, we do not have any five-generation Defense!Control and alert chainNorwegian military doctrine has had a strategic defensive and tactically offensive ambition. Strategically defensive is little controversial. Nor has there been much discussion about how we might try to act tactically offensive. I think that's because we've had little real ability to actually act offensive. Poor survival means that the Armed Forces can not follow an offensive line with F-16. At least not in the face of an advanced opponent. Our old F-16 is particularly vulnerable to modern air defense systems, which in practice shut the airspace for us. F-16's poor sensor capacity means that our F-16 is also fully dependent on the control and alert chain to be effective on mission.Now it's time to believe us when we go again saying that the F-35 is effective in the air-to-air role.Because the F-16 is so dependent on support from the control and warning chain, our F-16 has traditionally been "tight link" in terms of engagement rules and authority to deliver weapons. In practice, the pilot has received approval to engage each air goal. There are good reasons to keep a tight link, not least to avoid unwanted political and strategic consequences, but also to avoid engaging other own forces.Unlike the F-16, the F-35 has a robust ability to identify air targets on its own and with great accuracy. Before I move on, I track a bit to emphasize an important prerequisite: That we have an updated and validated electronic library in our F-35. The library describes both friendly and hostile radio transmitters of all kinds, such as radar. Set on the tip; An inaccurate electronic library causes the F-35 pilot to shoot down the passenger plane instead of the enemy combat plane. Therefore, I think the priority of just programming lab was an invaluable step towards a five-generation defense.Norwegian military doctrine has had a strategic defensive and tactically offensive ambition. PHOTO: Torbjørn Kjosvold / DefenseMore authority for the cockpitBack on track. Assuming a good electronic library and robust ability to identify goals on their own; Therefore, in a full war situation, greater authority should be delegated to the F-35 pilot. If strategic and operational management does not dare to delegate authority to "cockpit", and inverting our old action pattern, where the control and alert chain "approves" every shot, we will always be less effective than possible with the F-35. We will operate a fifth generation weapon platform in a third generation Defense.Greater delegation of authority to "cockpit" also means that the control and warning chain has a slightly different role. There is less emphasis on control and more emphasis on alert than we are used to. (F-16 must be "rented" completely into the boxing box, if there will be any match. F-35 finds the road itself, right from the wardrobe.) Since the F-35 only needs to be directed in the "general direction" we usually have little need to talk with the checkers on the ground. An updated situation picture, showing land, sea and air targets, and shared with data links, is probably all that is needed. ("Voice Control" was the British already successful during the Battle of Britain.)Greater trust from managementAnother likely challenge for our command and control device is that F-35 abruptly can be the only sensor that follows an air goal. This may be because the control and warning chain does not have sensor coverage in the area or because the sensors are broken. Nevertheless, it brings again the issue of delegation of authority. Perhaps we have no other data on this goal, but the F-35 has identified it as hostile, with high levels of reliability. What decision should boss NAOC take? Should he be part of the process? Can he be part of the process, if the goal is volatile - do you think a cross-missile - or if F-35 is out of line coverage?Delegation of greater authority to the "cockpit" requires high trust from senior management (which will surely look after the F-35 squadrons as a sphere of "strategic" fenomenals and lieutenants). Continuing good education lays the foundation for trust and delegation, but I doubt that education alone will bring us to the fullest. I think it's important that senior management takes an active role and engages to learn and fully understand what F-35 brings. This understanding is essential for managers to dare to rely on system F-35. Without a greater degree of delegation, we will hardly be able to fully utilize the F-35.New and important choicesThis might be a slight downturn. Back to the air defense. Defensive contra-air with F-16, or air defense, we are well-known in Norway. F-16's poor sensor capacity and low survival rate made the F-16 a purely defensive resource for home-based use: We wait until the opponent signNowes us and sends F-16 to engage the opponent's airplane, over Norway. (Hopefully , because the gun load is delivered). The goal selection for our F-16 in the counter-air role is therefore self-evident; We are chasing the enemy's airplanes. The planes are the goal. This is a reactive way of action, which forces the Armed Forces to keep high readiness over time. High preparedness requires large resources. (Has the Armed Forces great resources?) With F-35, and in the long term, Joint & Naval Strike Missile (JSM & NSM), this changes.Good survival allows the F-35 to operate in areas that are closed to F-16. Good sensors allow the F-35 to be effective also without the support of the control and warning chain. (In other words, not just "home"). Therefore, the F-35 gives our military and political leadership new and important choices. Choices that must be taken now, which must result in updated headings, attitudes, concepts and plans in government, ministry and operational headquarters. (If this does not happen, only squadrons are ready to be ready by 2019. Do we have a five-generation Defense?)Delegation of greater authority to "cockpit" requires high trust from senior management. PHOTO: Torbjørn Kjosvold / DefenseContraindications AirOur managers can choose to use the F-35 just the way we use F-16 today, as a kind of Super-16. (An F-16 on steroids). F-35 will do better in this role than F-16 today, but the behavior is still reactive, requires large resources and we have limited own target choices. (It's like using a modern PC just like an electric typewriter, without ever logging in online. Not to mention a round of solitaire.)With the F-35, our political and military leaders can for the first time choose to be tactically offensive. In a contra-air campaign, target selection only needs to be enemy aircraft in air, across Norway. We can choose to intervene in the opponent's chain on an earlier stage. Within the framework of contra-air, natural targets can be command and control systems, opponent's airports with aircraft on the ground, runways and weapon bearings, or the opponent's logistics chain. It should be obvious that these goals can give greater effect to an opponent, especially over time. None of these choices are on the table with F-16 alone.Most important means of actionIf we choose to be more offensive in the use of air force, we are going on to a proactive role. It moves us away from a forced fatigue war and will be an asset resource. Especially for Norway's small defense. An offensive approach forces the attacker to confront defensively.A natural continuation of this thinking must be to clarify the role of F-35 in defense of Norway in a joint operational context. Not only air-to-air, and air power, in a vacuum. What should we prioritize, with limited number of aircraft available? Should we provide support for the army at Finnmarksvidda? Should we fly patrol over the frigates to the Navy? Can we do everything at the same time, or should FOH prioritize other goals that could give greater effect?I do not argue that Norway will only react aggressively. What will be the correct use of power in a given situation, it is up to our senior executives to decide. My point is that our managers have a job to do: Our leaders must think through the new freedom of choice, and find out when, where and how, F-35, as the Armed Forces most important means of power, should be used tactically offensive in defense of Norway. We do not have a five-generation defense before we have this answer crystal clear.
-
What facts about Japan do foreigners not believe until they come to Japan?
Well I have lived in Japan for almost 3 years and the below incidents were hard to believe when they occurred:We took a taxi very late in night after we missed the last train to signNow our place. The total bill was about 20,000 yen but taxi driver took only about 16,000 yen saying that he took a wrong turn and it has caused 4,000 yen excess bill and he won't take that.My friend got his train pass made for 10,000 yen and lost it on the same day. It could have been used by anyone but somebody returned it to railways personnel and we got it back the next day when we inquired about it.While coming back in taxi from market to our place we didn't have exact change to pay to driver and driver also didn't have it. We asked him to stay for 5 mins so that we could get it from somewhere. He felt so much guilt for causing us the inconvenience that he apologised to us and left without taking any money.On a Friday night we came back from office at around 11 pm and were looking for some beer. We asked to a person who was standing at counter of a Starbucks (company) cafe. He was so much eager to help us that he came with us for around 200 meters leaving his counter to his colleague and made sure that we find a beer shop.While travelling in train on a Saturday night there was a co passenger girl who was so much drunk that she puked in the train itself. The other co passengers provided her the tissues and a plastic bag and despite being so drunk the girl cleaned everything and apologised to everyone.While in Tokyo Disneyland we asked a sweeper worker to take our snapshot photo. He kept his broom aside at some distance and took our snap. After we were done some other group came and asked him to take their snap. We went ahead to see other attractions. After around one hour we came back to same point and saw a queue at that point for getting a snap done from that sweeper. The person was happily and enthusiastically taking everyone's snap. So much humility.I can go on and on.Japanese are incredible. Hats off!
-
What is it like for a foreigner living in Tallinn?
(I started to answer a very short answer and ended up with a long entry. I hope you find it useful.)As Richard Tuisk said, it depends a lot on where you are from. However, let me tell you what my experience has been so far in Estonia, what I think it is good and what I would see as a downside of living here. Of course, I need to qualify my answer by saying that I am Latin American, but also have lived in four other countries (including the US where I went to college).A quick introduction: Estonia is a small country located in the Baltic Sea next to Russia and Latvia and very close to Finland. It is part of the European Union. The area of the country is roughly the same as Switzerland or as Maryland and Massachussets combined. There is about 1.3 million people living here which means it is not densely populated. The country is essentially flat, except in the south where you find the highest point at 318 meters (1043 ft). The main city and where I live in is Tallinn. The population is about 400,000 people. Tartu is the second city with about 100,000 people and all the rest of towns are smaller than that.Immigration systemIf you are European, moving here is no problem as you enjoy all the benefits of any country within the European Union. If you are not European, the main reasons people immigrate here is to work which would guarantee a working visa or if you are married to an Estonian citizen which allows you to apply for a visa as long as you have enough funds to live here.Overall, the process to get a short-term visa is straight forward. Obtaining a long-term visa is more complicated as you have to speak the language at a relatively high level. Obtaining a citizenship requires that you give up your own citizenship.JobsAlthough Estonia suffered also during the 2008 crisis, there is enough jobs in areas of business and technology for people to move here. One of the problems Estonia faces is that it does not have enough people to fill all jobs in IT areas as I hear.There is a few big companies who recruit people from abroad, but if you don't speak the local language, your opportunities are reduced to the IT area (I work for Skype which originated here in Estonia which was acquired by Microsoft in 2011). You can see a list of notable companies here: List of companies of EstoniaSocial interactionEstonians tend to be reserved in comparison to other Europeans. I suggest to foreigners who come here to be aware of differences so they are not taken by surprise. Some examples of faux pas I have encountered:Using smalltalk in a conversation.Saying good morning when coming to office or good bye when leaving.Smiling with no reason (I have to accept that this could be awkward in Northern Europe and some parts of the US, but it is totally normal in Mediterranean or Latin American environments).Being noisy. People love their quiet here.However, it is totally Ok to try to make a conversation in English especially with young people. I am learning Estonian and try to use the language when I can, but in some occasions (say, at the pharmacy), I need to switch to English and have never found anyone being annoyed by that.The exception to all of this is if you meet young people. They tend to be more open and curious (especially women). I am speaking about more casual environments such as a cafe or a restaurant, but a bit less at work. Another obvious exception is if you are in a touristy area (such as the Old Town in Tallinn), but this should go without saying.It is totally Ok to be in a group of people and be totally silent. For example, you can have lunch or share a cab with Estonians when no one is speaking, but there is no awkwardness on it. Another thing is that people do not demonstrate much through their expressions which is one of the difficult things to deal with for me. Remember, I come from a country where you smile or frown or show your teeth if you want someone to understand you clearly.When having a conversation with an Estonian, you should say what you mean and mean what you say (remember what I said about smalltalk?). For example, if you ask "how are you?" to an Estonian, do it only if (a) you really want to know how the other person is, and (b) don't ask it if you don't know the person well. I value that Estonians take your word at face value and you should do the same with them.One word of advice is that Estonians can be very critical of others, but they are mainly critical of themselves. Someone told me once that complaining is a national sport, and I have to agree with that. In other words, when they tell you that something is truly bad here in this country, you have to take it with a grain of salt.Because of this, you should also expect that people are straight forward with you. In some cases, this borders on rudeness if I measure by my home country's standards, but here is totally Ok. I have seen a few foreigners getting shocked by that, but you get used to it. In other words, they are not politically correct (this I like very much).Also, because people are economical with the language, you shouldn't expect what I would call, a "warm" communication most of the time. As a latin person, I need to say and hear things on a beautiful way, but this doesn't happen here much. It is different when you start to get to know locals.Which brings me to the last point. It takes a while before you break the ice with an Estonian, but it is worth waiting. I have had the chance to establish a closer link with some locals outside my wife's family and I find an honesty and sincerity that I haven't seen in other places. If you get to that point, congratulations, as you have made it through this journey. By this time, you should also be an expert on sharing saunas with people you don't know (and yes, naked) and have had your share of vodka.Quality of life, services, infrastructureWhen compared to other places where I have lived, I have to say that Estonia still doesn't signNow the level of living in Germany or the US, but it is getting closer by the day. However, I would say that Estonia is already at the level that I would call it first-world country in most aspects.Infrastructure and services need some improvement, but they provide the minimum level of service. For example, if you don't have a car, you can use public transportation everywhere even if buses, trains or trams are sometimes old. Roads in Tallinn are Ok, even if you find potholes in some places. Services such as schools and hospitals are public which means that there is always a waiting list. If you need to visit a specialist doctor, you have to wait. On the other hand, the wait is not as bad as in third-world countries (like where I come from). Also, those services are basically free. The downside is that there is almost no private service, and even the ones there are rely partially on the public health system for some aspects.I have had two children born here and had no complaints about the process. In fact, I felt that everything was very professional and that they always try to do their best. However, when I spoke with Estonians, some of them were very surprised that I spoke highly of the hospital system. I guess it's up to my personal point of view in this case.Taxes are low. Personal income tax is 21% flat for everyone. If you live here and your visa allows it, you can create your own start-up in no time which is prevalent among young people in IT.By the way, unemployment was at 8% at the end of Q3 in 2013. I am no economist, but I understand that this is still considered high. However, it came down from 10.2% at the end of 2012.Food, shoppingEstonia has the typical supermarkets like any other European country. There is also local markets, but you probably need to speak Estonian or Russian. Typical food you find are potatoes, wheat-like grains, oats and so on. Pork meat and fish are eaten often here, but beef is not yet too common. Vegetables and fruits tend to be expensive. I miss having international food though. There is one supermarket in town (Stockmann) that carries some international products, but it is very expensive. I was used to visiting Oriental-type shops in Ireland and Germany, but there is none here that I know of.There is a few shopping centres, but the variety is not wide. I am in favor of buying local to support businesses here, but in many cases, we end up buying from abroad because of the lack of options or because we would have to wait for too long. For example, my wife and I love movies (yeah, still buying old-fashioned DVDs), but there is no shop that fills our expectations. Because of that, we buy everything from Amazon.ActivitiesIf you love nature, you are in luck. There is a lot of natural areas in the country and they are a short drive away. There is plenty of sea shores, forests, rivers and lakes. In the Summer you can do hiking, camping, canoeing and you can add cross country skiing in the Winter. Estonians love nature in general.If you are a city person (like myself), then that's another story. There is a few theatres, cinemas, galleries and so on, but everything is limited. Tallinn itself has the most interesting activities in the center. There is plenty of good restaurants though.Cinemas show the popular movies like everywhere else and you can find some artsy type of cinemas for alternative movies. No movie is dubbed here, but they usually carry subtitles in both Estonian and Russian.What is impressive about this countryThere is a few good things that I haven't seen outside Estonia. The first one is the electronic system prevalent in this country. When you are a foreigner and get your Estonian ID, you are also getting your electronic identity. With that, you can file taxes online, access information about property, bank accounts, mobiles, whatever services you need. When you get your local ID number, you automatically get a local e-mail address at the eesti.ee domain that you can redirect to your personal account. With that, you never miss an official communication (such as whenever is time to file your taxes).That ID has also legal validity and you can sign documents electronically anywhere in the world. For example, if you apply to get a car leasing, you don't have to show up at the bank necessarily. They send you some forms, you put your ID card in your computer reader, sign the document electronically, and send it back and that's it. It is the equivalent of putting your signature on paper in front of the bank official or lawyer. Estonian citizens and permanent residents are even allowed to vote online with their ID.A second impressive area is bureaucracy: it is a well-oiled machine. One recurrent example is taxes. You get the notification that your taxes are ready to file, you login to the tax office site, sign in, check that they have the correct information that they have collected from your company, employer and so on, sign with your ID card, and that's it. It might take as little as five minutes. My wife and I file jointly, so it takes us much longer: twenty minutes (and that's because we always forget to do one crucial step so we are delayed).The government doesn't even use paper for their minister meetings. They file everything electronically which is made available so you can follow up agendas, minutes and whatever happens there.You want to open your own company? It might take literally twenty minutes to do that too. All of this thanks to the frictionless bureaucratic system they have here. You want to park? Send a text to the number 1902 with your plate number and where you are parking and it will be charged to your mobile.One more impressive part: internet. Besides having decent speeds, there is practically free access points everywhere through the country. I personally have witnessed free available working access points in national parks and public beaches. You can read this article that talks about this (read the date: 2005!): Estonia sets shining Wi-Fi exampleIn my case, I don't use access points much because I have a decent LTE connection with my mobile. Mobile companies have good coverage and relatively good service. I remember that when we got our internet when we moved here, it took only one day to install it. When I measured the effective speed a few months later out of curiosity, it was 50 Mbps. Not bad.The downsidesAs anywhere else, there is a few things that you need to be aware of that could be difficult to adapt to.The first part for me is the social interaction which tends to be dry and quiet. I mentioned that above, so not much more to say here.Another one is the weather. In Winter, the sun might rise at 9:30 in the morning and set at 3 in the afternoon. That's just about six hours of sunlight. If you add that it is cloudy most of the time during the Winter, then you realise how dark it might be. As counterposition, Summers are amazing (up to 20 hours of sunlight and clear skies easily).Winters are relatively long. It gets cold around the end of October and stays that way until around April. It varies from year to year, but sometimes the temperature drops to -30 degrees Celsius (-22 F). Life rarely stops here because of the cold or snow though. I have taken the bus at -30 degrees Celsius. It makes for an interesting ride.One more problem for a foreigner to live here is that you feel a bit isolated from the world. Flights are available mainly to neighbouring countries plus Germany, UK and the Netherlands. If you are from another country, you always need to make connections which makes it longer and more expensive to go back home.Last, if you are from a big city, you might find even Tallinn a bit provincial. It is changing as of late though. On the other hand, there is some positive things out of this too: less crime and virtually no traffic jam as I know it (I live 20 km. from work and make it in 30 minutes on a good day and 45 on a bad one).If you are thinking to move here, I definitely recommend this place.
-
Why does Satoshi Nakamoto prefer to remain unknown (or anonymous) despite coming up with the disruptive innovation?
Good question. My guess is either:Satoshi was a truly selfless individual who wanted bitcoin to remain consensus based.Satoshi is dead and is not really committed to anonymity; orSatoshi is actually a group of people. Probably including several of the likely suspects below. Although the original code may have been written by one person the language in chat rooms, message boards and even the white paper itself suggest many unique contributors. Given this vision there were also probabaly non coders/developers who helped distribute the idea and were essentially “the political advocates” who brought the code to the internet at large. These are likely some of the people listed below that I have seen referenced as “potential Satoshi’s” (although none of these leads ever panned out).In a 2011 article in The New Yorker, Joshua Davis claimed to have narrowed down the identity of Nakamoto to a number of possible individuals, including the Finnish economist Dr. Vili Lehdonvirta and Irish student Michael Clear , then a graduate student in cryptography at Trinity College Dublin and now a post-doctoral student at Georgetown University.In October 2011, writing for Fast Company, investigative journalist Adam Penenberg cited circumstantial evidence suggesting Neal King, Vladimir Oksman and Charles Bry could be Nakamoto.They jointly filed a patent application that contained the phrase "computationally impractical to reverse" in 2008, which was also used in the bitcoin white paper.May 2013, Ted Nelson speculated that Nakamoto is really Japanese mathematician Shinichi Mochizuki.Later, an article was published in The Age newspaper that claimed that Mochizuki denied these speculations, but without attributing a source for the denial.A 2013 article in Gawker listed Gavin Andresen, Jed McCaleb, Casey Botticello, or a government agency as possible candidates to be Nakamoto. Dustin D. Trammell, a Texas-based security researcher, was suggested as Nakamoto, but he publicly denied it. Casey Botticello, the head of the Cryptocurrency Alliance has refused to comment.In 2013, two Israeli mathematicians, Dorit Ron and Adi Shamir, published a paper claiming a link between Nakamoto and Ross William Ulbricht. The two based their suspicion on an analysis of the network of bitcoin transactions, but later retracted their claim.Some considered Nakamoto might be a team of people; Dan Kaminsky, a security researcher who read the bitcoin code.
-
What is your most bizarre airport experience?
I have worked for an airline at LAX for the last 6 years. Bizarre doesn’t even begin to describe some of the people and situations I’ve witnessed. I could list hundreds of examples but I don’t want to scare you away from flying altogether, so here are just a few.I was working the front desk at our airline lounge one afternoon when a guest walked in and asked to purchase a day pass. She was a thin, 40-something brunette, about average height, sporting thick-rimmed glasses and a pixie cut. At first glance, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.As I went through the process of selling her the pass, she started telling me about her day which turned into vague stories about her life. I kept having to pause and look up at her because I couldn’t follow what she was saying. She spoke rapidly and rambled about unrelated topics, jumping from one to the next. I attributed her behavior to airport stress and politely nodded and smiled (as one does when they work in customer service and are privy to many a life story). I handed her the receipt and welcomed her to the lounge, pointing in the direction of the main seating area.After she settled in, she approached the desk once more to ask about the amenities and we spoke again. I don’t remember what was said because my co-worker had distracted me during the conversation. He gave me an eyes wide open, brows raised look followed by a “why are you still talking to this woman” nudge because he noticed she was acting a bit erratically. I responded to him with an eyes wide open, brows raised look of my own followed by a “she’s nice and probably just anxious about traveling so don’t be mean” smile. “Whatever, I’m going on break.” He laughed. “Good luck.”She noticed none of this, as she was pacing from the desk to the door and back to the desk while looking at the ceiling and chattering about on the way back to her seat.Shortly after, a police officer entered. He showed me his badge and stated he was looking for a woman by my new friend’s first and last name. I informed him that she was there and led him to her seat in the center of the lounge where thirty or so other passengers started looking on curiously.The police officer spoke with her, asking basic questions such as her name and travel plans. He stepped outside the lounge for a moment and shortly returned with three more police officers. They advised me to cancel and refund her ticket, as she would “no longer be flying”. Minutes later, a handful of paramedics and firemen appeared with a stretcher.“What is going on?” I asked.“She escaped from a mental institution this morning.” The officer beside me said in a low voice. “Her husband reported her missing and we traced her here through his credit card charges.”My eyes widened.“Yeah.” He nodded in agreement.After consulting with my manager, I led them to a private room within the lounge so they could escort her without a peering audience. As they walked her there, she began knowingly screaming, “Please don’t take me back, please!” It took two men to cuff her to the stretcher while the others tried to calm her down but she resisted, sitting up and continuing to cry out, “Please it’s not true! My husband put me there, whatever he told you it’s not true! Don’t make me go back!” She began to swear in her proceeding cries for help. The medics injected her with a needle and her shouts diminished to whimpers. I stood frozen as she looked at me, eyes pleading, and begged “Don’t let them take me” before surrendering onto her back. My mind raced as rapidly as she had spoken when she first entered the lounge. What if she really didn’t belong there? What if it is a conspiracy? She didn’t seem like she needed to be in a mental institution, after all she’d made it this far on her own… But what if everything they are saying is true? Maybe her husband really is just trying to help her... Can I do anything either way? I knew that the answer was no and gazed down helplessly. They led her out through the room’s private exit as I proceeded to apologize to the other guests in the lounge, purposely avoiding direct eye contact and mumbling something about how I couldn’t give them any other information but that they had nothing to worry about. I went back to my desk. As I canceled her ticket, my co-worker returned. “Did I miss anything?”…I kid you not.Second story is short and “sharp”! I worked out of Logan Airport in Boston for a year before transferring to LAX. Our ticket counter there was directly adjacent to TSA, so we saw everything. One time an elderly passenger was going through with his cane when TSA discovered a sword inside of it. Yes, a sword. He claimed he had no prior knowledge…Last but definitely not least, we had a woman fly from Seattle to Los Angeles with her “emotional support” turkey. It is banned now but at the time there was no written policy that specifically forbade it. I will leave you with this photo, which speaks (or gobbles) for itself:EDIT: This was my first Quora post and I was not expecting many people to read it, but thank you for the views and upvotes!Here are two bonus stories that occurred when I was working recently for anyone who is interested in the bizarre and shocking goings-on of an Airport Baggage Claim.My friend was opening the baggage office at 5am when she heard a loud thud. Random noises are not uncommon at LAX, but the Arrivals area at 5am is generally quiet. She walked over to the baggage carousel to investigate the sound and saw a man lying on the floor covered in dust and pieces of plaster. She looked up and saw a giant hole in the ceiling. This man literally fell through the ceiling. Police officers were called and upon further investigation they found blankets, toothpaste, shaving cream, and other amenities up there. Some of you may remember this story from the news, but they found out he had been living in the ceiling above the baggage carousel for months, rent-free!A white-haired man with a salt and pepper beard and thick black trench-coat was pacing frantically and swearing to himself by our LAX baggage carousel one afternoon. I walked into the baggage office and asked my co-worker Lauren* (not her real name) what his deal was. She said he was angry that his bag did not arrive with his flight. She had been trying to get information from him for 20 minutes so she could locate it but he just kept walking into the office, cursing the airline for losing his bag, storming out and looping around the non-moving baggage carousel as if expecting his suitcase to magically appear with each completed lap.I spoke firmly to Roger* (also not his real name) saying we could not help him without any info as to who he was, where he flew from, or his bag tag number. He threw his boarding pass and baggage claim ticket in our faces and escalated his anti-airline rant “I will never fly ever again! Never! I’m taking the Greyhound next time!” to an anti-America rant “This [BLEEP] COUNTRY! I hate this country!” and then listing off the many ways in which he felt wronged by the government, no longer referencing air travel at all. I glanced at Lauren who mouthed, “this guy is loco” and we immediately began the search for his bag to rid ourselves of his presence.I pulled up the bag history and saw that his bag was scanned in LAX just 30 minutes prior. Temporary relief filled our lungs until we realized that it was mis-tagged as a transfer to Honolulu, Hawaii and loaded onto that connecting flight.“Great!” Lauren stated. “We can just have the ramp team pull the bag.”Not great. The flight had left just 5 minutes prior, so the bag was already en route to Honolulu. Had he cooperated from the beginning, we could have discovered this immediately and reunited him with his bag before the flight departed. Of course since the redirect wasn’t his fault (the agent in his origin city incorrectly tagged the bag to Hawaii under a similar passenger’s last name - always do a visual check of your luggage tags before they get sent away!) we advised him that he would be compensated, his bag would be sent back to LAX ASAP, and we would set up delivery to his address upon receipt. He would have it by the evening.He fumed.“DO YOU KNOW WHAT’S IN THAT BAG? DO YOU?” We stared at him blankly as he shook his index finger in our faces. “MY ROCKS!”Lauren and I looked at each other, both at a loss for words. He continued. “THEY ARE THE MOST VALUABLE ROCKS IN THE WORLD!”We repeated that we would call the supervisor in Hawaii directly to personally ensure that the bag was placed on the return flight.“AND WHAT IF THE PLANE CRASHES, HUH? WHAT THEN?” Our office was getting smaller by the second. “IF THAT [BLEEP] PLANE GOES DOWN AND EVERYONE ON IT DIES, THEIR [BLEEP] LIVES COMBINED ARE NOT AS VALUABLE AS MY ROCKS! HOW WILL YOU GET MY ROCKS TO ME THEN?”We readied ourselves to call airport police, worried he may become as violent as his speech, when his younger, long-haired colleague appeared by his side.“What’s going on Rog’?” He wore flip-flops in December and spoke as he chewed on gum.“These [bleep] lost my rocks! My bag went to [bleep] Hawaii!”His friend paused for a moment, a smile forming on his lips.“That’s excellent news.” He remarked to our surprise. Roger (can I call him Rog’ too?), stared at him dumbfounded. He continued slowly and in a soft voice, “The rocks were meant to go to Hawaii. They needed to touch down on Hawaiian soil.” His smile was fully formed by now. “Remember the curse? This is the chance we’ve been waiting for to finally lift it. After all these years! This is excellent, just excellent.” He sputtered gleefully.Lauren and I took turns hiding from these two in the back office.Roger had calmed down, but only in a calm-before-the-storm type way. He dug through his hand bag, pulling out a smooth and glossy brown stone, no larger than the size of the circle formed by touching your thumb to your forefinger.His voice rose again.“SEE THIS ROCK? SEE? THIS IS ONE OF THEM.” He waved it in front of our faces. We weren’t trying to get fired, so we didn’t say anything back to him. Our lack of a reaction must have upset him because he proceeded to lunge his arm backwards and lurch it forwards, throwing the Most Valuable Rock In The World at the wall and missing my face by inches. His priceless stone became chipped upon impact and fell to the floor.We 100% should have called the police, but we stood there in stunned silence and let our supervisor with perfect timing handle him. She spoke to them coolly and finally got them to leave. He left his precious rock behind as Flip-Flops told us we could keep it before skipping out the door behind him.I plastered a smile on my face and waved to good ol’ Rog’ on their way out, calling after him deviously, “Aloha!”We breathed the Most Satisfying Sigh of Relief In The World and laughed as Lauren speculated that he must have grave-robbed ancient stones from King Tut. She joked that when the bag did arrive, we should grab an entire roll of fragile stickers and wrap up every last magical rock with them as well as the entire outside of the bag before sending it out for delivery.I discarded my present shortly after finding no evidence of the supernatural, thereby deeming it the Most Overrated Rock In The World while contemplating new career choices.
-
How do you build stamina for working long hours?
Before I answer this question, I want to start by pointing one thing out…You’re not supposed to work long hours!According to all of the best research, after 35 hours of work, your weekly productivity will begin to declineThis means that if you were working at a level 8–10 for the first 35 hours of the week, you’ll be working at a level 5 or below for hours 35+.While there are many people like Gary Vaynerchuk who seem to be able to bend reality to their will and work insane hours for extended periods of time, the simple fact of the matter is this:You only have so much mental energy to expend in a week.You cannot be operating at 100% for 60, 70, or 80 hours a week. It’s just not possible.And if you try… Then you are going to wear yourself out and lower the quality of the other hours that you work.It’s far better to work 35 or fewer hours per week where you are hyper focused and productive than it is to work 60 where you are burnt out and frustrated.But I digress…If you’re anything like I was 2–3 years ago, you’re going to read this and completely ignore it, and that’s fine. Most people have to experience things firsthand before they will really believe them.So with that disclaimer out of the way, here are a few tips and tricks for increasing your energy, focus, and productivity so that you can work long hours effectively.(Note: Some of this content is pulled from my Ultimate Guide to Limitless Productivity where I share the most scientifically validated ways to increase your productivity and get more done in less time)1. Sleep at Least 7.5 Hours Each NightIf you want to have the stamina to work long hours, then you need to make sure that your body and mind are fully rested and equipped to handle an arduous work load.According to Medical Daily, 40.6 million Americans, more than 30% of the workforce, are chronically sleep deprived.Now, at first glance, you might think, “C’mon Andrew, who gives a crap? You can sleep when you’re dead, these people just need to work more!”But when you consider that sleep deprivation has been linked to:DepressionDeliriumHallucinationsImpaired Cognition and an Increased Risk of Preventable AccidentsNot to mention, an increased risk of infections, cancer, and overall mortality.You begin to realize that sleep deprivation is a big deal.Like a really big deal.I know that most young people love the #hustle mentality and believe that there is something noble or productive in sleep deprivation.But nothing could be further from the truth.Unless you have the rare genetic mutation, DEC2, (present in less than 5% of the population) sleeping less than 6 hours a night is literally killing you.And the worst part?You aren’t even aware that it’s happening.Now, let’s consider the positive effects that studies have shown to be present when an individual gets sufficient sleep.Improved memoryLower systemic inflammationImproved immune functionElevated moodLearning and problem-solving abilities improvedI don’t know about you, but I personally believe that having a better memory, experiencing less illness, feeling happier, learning faster, and solving problems more rapidly all strongly correlate to being more productive.This isn’t just my opinion either. In fact, some of the world’s top performers report sleeping more than 8.5 hours a night.Podcast Guest, Neil Patel sleeps 9.25 hours a night while running three multi-million dollar businesses.Arianna Huffington, Co-founder of the Huffington Post and multimillionaire claims that sleeping 8 hours a night was partially responsible for her success.James Altucher, multi-millionaire investor, and hedge fund manager includes “Sleeping 8 Hours” as one of the keys to his financial successAt this point, it should be clear that getting more sleep is, indeed, one of the quickest ways to boost your productivity.But the question still remains, “How much sleep do I need, and how can I get better quality sleep?”According to the National Sleep Foundation, adults need 7-9 hours in order to prevent the effects of sleep deprivation from affecting your life and productivity. (slightly more if you’re an avid athlete)As for increasing the quality of your sleep, it’s actually pretty simple.Go to bed before 11 p.m.Wake up at the same time each daySleep in a completely dark and cold room (research shows that 65-67 F is ideal for sleep)Exercise dailyTurn off all electronics 60 minutes before bed.I know that this particular section was a little bit long-winded, but this point is so important that I couldn’t simply breeze through it.If you want to be more productive, you need to sleep. Period.Until you are getting 7.5-9 hours of sleep on a consistent basis, the other tactics included in this guide will simply fan the flames of burnout until, eventually, you collapse in a stressed out, sleep deprived panic attack.Take it from me (and thousands of scholarly studies), quit trying to join the sleepless elite and get your 7 hours. M’kay?2. Sweat for At Least 20 Minutes a DayStudy after study after study has illustrated the tremendous importance of daily exercise.From:Decreased depressionElevated mood, reduced stress, and less anxietyImproved blood flow to the brainThe production of new brain cellsImproves memoryImproved discipline, impulse control, and decision makingIn fact, there are SO many benefits to exercise, that the Harvard Business Review has stated that regular exercise should be a mandatory part of any job description.Luckily, studies have shown that you don’t have to exercise for hours every day to reap these benefits.In fact, just 150 minutes of weekly exercise (that’s 30 minutes every weekday) is more than sufficient to improve your productivity, mood, and general well being.If you are exercising exclusively for increased productivity, studies have shown that 2-3 moderately intense sessions of aerobic exercise each week will have the most dramatic impact on your ability to focus and concentrate.However, this does not mean that you should exclusively train your aerobic capacity.Further research has indicated that combining regular aerobic conditioning with an intelligent weightlifting regimen (I recommend this one) and regular yoga will have the greatest impact on your ability to be more productive and stay focused throughout the day.3. Eat Clean Burning Foods and Reduce Your Carb Load Early in the DayMost people underestimate the effect that your diet has on cognitive performance and general productivity.Think about it this way…Your brain is the center of all productivity.Although that tiny little supercomputer takes up only 2-3% of the total mass of your body, it burns more than 20% of the calories that you consume!In and of itself, this should clearly illustrate the link between food and productivity.Studies from the Harvard Business Review have shown an inextricable link between the calories that you consume and the ability for your brain to focus and achieve long-lasting concentration.I won’t bore you with all of the science, but I will suffice it to say that what you eat matters… A lot.If you want to be as productive as possible, you will want to clean up your diet.Here are a few guidelines to get you started.Eliminate as many processed foods as possibleConsume slow burning foods such as raw vegetables and fibrous carbohydrates throughout the day to properly regulate glucose levels in the brainConsume your biggest and highest carb meal after your workout or at dinnerSkip breakfast and opt for coconut oil coffee or eat a very protein and fat rich breakfast (no carbs!)Although you can dive much much deeper into the world of productivity and focus through dieting, simply eliminating processed foods, increasing the number of vegetables you eat, and waiting until later in the day to consume carbs will dramatically improve your productivity almost overnight.If you are interested in learning more about how your dietary choices and productivity are related, check out this awesome infographic from Hubspot.4. Bring the JoyAlthough it might seem like common sense, happy and excited people are more productive.How much more productive?Well, according to a study compiled by Professor Andrew Oswald, Dr. Eugenio Proto and Dr. Daniel Sgroi from the Department of Economics at the University of Warwick, happy employees are 12% more productive than their unhappy peers!I don’t have time to dive into all of the amazing research that has been compiled in recent years that details what determines human happiness, (you should check out the Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor if you’re interested in this), I want to share a quick tactic I picked up from Brendon Burchard.The tactic, called “Bring the Joy” is simple enough, but the results you will experience are profound.All I want you to do is to set 3 alarm on your phone titled Bring the Joy.Set them to go off at different times throughout the day and, when you see the notification pop up on your screen, I want you to ask yourself three questions.What level of joy and presence am I bringing to this present moment?What am I grateful for today?How can I bring more joy and excitement into my current interactions and activities?Like I said, simple right?I challenge you to try this tactic for the next 30 days and genuinely pause and become aware of your state every time your alarm goes off.You will be amazed at how much more productive and joyful your life will become.5. Meditate for at Least 10 Minutes a DayAlthough the scientific community needs to further evaluated the direct link between meditation and productivity, several studies like this one, conducted at a Fortune 100 company, show a very clear link between a regular meditation practice and increased productivity at work.The reason for this is simple.Meditation is proven to help: (source)Lower blood pressureAlleviate symptoms of insomniaReduce depression and anxietyReduce painReduce symptoms of IBSAid in smoking cessationOh, did I mention that it has also been shown to rebuild grey matter?As I’ve already discussed, happiness and productivity are inextricably linked and it should be pretty clear that any practice which decreases depression, anxiety, and sleeplessness will, by default, improve your productive output.I challenge you to take up a meditation practice for the next 30 days and record how you feel.Arnold Schwarzenegger, the infamous bodybuilder, real estate tycoon, and “Governator” of California stated that his one year of intense TM (Transcendental Meditation) practice has created results that6. Take Strategic Breaks Throughout the Day to Maintain Your Energy and EnthusiasmOne of the most surprising ways to increase your energy and boost productivity is actually to work less and take breaks more frequently.Study after study has shown that the human brain cannot focus (effectively) for more than 90 minutes.Eventually, your brain needs a break from any given task to consolidate and process information, renew our focus, and ensure that our tasks are ultimately congruent with our goals.Later in this article, I’ll discuss the Pomodoro method which helps cement these findings into your daily workflow.But for now, I simply want to encourage you to start taking a 45-60 minute break in the middle of every workday.During these breaks, I recommend that you:Practice meditationWalk outsideEat a light snackDo some calisthenicsReadTalk with friendsTest out different methods of recharging yourself and renewing your focus throughout the day and it will pay dividends in the long run.7. Eliminate Email as Much as PossibleNothing will drain your focus and stamina more than wasting nearly 30% of your work week responding to emails!In the United States alone, the average employee spends more than 28% of their time or 13 hours a week responding to emails.That’s more than 650 hours a year wasted on largely unproductive, reactive, and unnecessary correspondence!Over the average employee’s lifespan (45 working years) that equates to more than 29250 hours wasted on email.For those of you who are quick with a calculator, this means that the average employee will spend 3 years of their life responding to and clearing out emails!That’s a jaw-dropping amount of time to spend on such an insignNow and largely unimportant task as email.So what in the hell are we going to do about it?Although entire books have been written on the topic of reducing email overload and reclaiming your inbox (and your life) I will keep things simple.I recommend that you:Check email only twice a day (I do it at 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.)“Touch it once”. Either respond to, archive or delete an email. Never leave it in your inboxStop using email folders and simply search for emails when you need themKeep your emails to 5 sentences or less and inform people of this policy in your signature (shoutout to Chris Bailey for this one)Go on an email vacation and let co-workers know you won’t be responding to email until you are done with your biggest project (they will survive I promise)If you do nothing other than implementing these five tips your productivity will skyrocket.Imagine if you could reduce the amount of time you spend on email to only one hour a week.How much more could you accomplish with 12 extra hours in your work week?How much income could you create? How many promotions could you secure?The more you think about it, the more you will realize that email is the scourge of productivity and, although it is a necessary evil, it is an evil nonetheless.8. Embrace the Power of “No”The most powerful word in the entire English language is composed of only two letters.“No”The word “No” has started wars, ended wars, overthrown oppressive governments, and, as it pertains to our conversation, revolutionized personal productivity and fulfillment for people all over the world.Just think about it for a moment.How much pain, discomfort, and genuine wasted time have you experienced in your life because you said “Yes” when you should have said “No”?How many times have you spent an afternoon with people that you didn’t like, in a setting that made you uncomfortable, for a purpose you couldn’t ascertain simply because you didn’t have the courage to say “No”?If you are anything like me, the answer is probably “A lot”.I know from first-hand experience that implementing the power of “No” into your life can be very challenging.For years, I was a chronic people pleaser.I would go to parties I didn’t want to attend, stay late at work, go on dates with people I didn’t care for, and generally lived my life for the approval of others instead of my own personal satisfaction.Until one day, I had enough.I was burnt out, stressed out, wallowing in unfinished projects, unmet personal expectations, and general angst about my existence.So I decided to say “No” more often.I said no:When family members wanted to hang out during my workdaysWhen audience members asked to take me to lunch (I love you guys but I literally cannot meet with 30,000+ men 1-on-1)When friends wanted to go out and I didn’tWhen people made unfair requests of me and my timeWhen people asked for unwarranted favors because they were “My friend”I said “No” to the bad and even the good so that I could say “Yes” to the great.And if you want to be as productive as possible and create a truly prolific life, then you must learn to do the same.9. Use the Pomodoro TechniqueRemember how we talked about the importance of taking breaks way back in Path #1 (yeah, I know this is a long ass article)?Well, it turns out that taking breaks every 50-90 minutes can be just as effective at increasing your productivity and focus throughout the day as the 45-minute renewal exercise we already discussed.The reason for this lies in something called the Ultradian Rhythm.Effectively our brain waves are cyclical and go through peaks and troughs roughly every 90 minutes.In the same way that your brain cycles through different wavelengths during a 90-minute sleep cycle, so too does your brain cycle through wavelengths in a “basic rest-activity cycle”.If you are interested in learning more about the science, you can check out this article from Tony Schwartz.Knowing that cognitive output is cyclical, meaning that you physically cannot sustain high levels of concentration without intermittent periods of rest, changes the entire approach to productivity and focus.This is where the Pomodoro technique comes in handy.Instead of fighting against your Ultradian Rhythm, the Pomodoro technique works with it.Here’s what you do.Instead of simply sitting down at your desk to work, you are going to pick one of your most important tasks of the day (which I will talk about in the next point) and focus on it for a definite length of time between 25 and 90 minutes.Then, you are going to set a timer, eliminate all distractions, and get to work on that project with single-focus until the timer goes off.When the timer buzzes, you are going to take a break anywhere from 5-22 minutes (depending on the length of your work session) before sitting back down to begin the process all over again.All you need to complete the Pomodoro Technique is:A physical or online timerSomething to work onYour brainIt really is that simple.I’ve tested this tactic out for myself and have noticed that I am consistently more productive, more efficient, and more happy with my output when I use the Pomodoro technique on a regular basis.10. Create Locational Anchors to Build Productive StatesAn underground tactic that I’ve found to be immensely effective in recent months is the use of locational anchors.This concept was first introduced to me when I listened to an excellent podcast with Jairek Robbins.Jairek discussed the concept of locational anchors by explaining that the brain works through the power of association and that, the more associations we can build for a specific task, the easier it will be to accomplish it.This is why doctors tell you to only use your bed for sleep and sex.You want to make sure that when it’s time to unwind or *ahem* perform, that your body and brain associate your bed with those activities.This is also why it’s so much easier to have an awesome workout at your local gym than it is with an Iron Gym in your living room.However, Jairek took things a step further and recommended that you actually develop locational anchors for ALL major tasks that you must complete throughout the day.For example:Check email at the kitchen tableTake conference calls at your local cafeWrite at your desk while looking out the windowDesign sales funnels at your desk with your back to the windowComplete all administrative work at a specific nook in your houseThe list goes on and on.Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any direct research to back up this particular hack, however, after experiencing its effectiveness first hand, I couldn’t leave it off this list.Give it a go for 90 days and I promise you will get more done than you ever believed possible.Final Thoughts: Take it Easy on Yourself!Before I leave you to take on the big bad world of getting sh*t done and becoming a productivity machine, I wanted to leave you with one final tip.Take it easy on yourself.The most unproductive thing you can do is to berate and belittle yourself because you haven’t been as successful or productive as you want.Yes, it’s important that you are honest with yourself and your clients and don’t sugarcoat the reality of your current capacity.However, you must remember that you were never taught this in school. You weren’t born with the knowledge of how to be massively productive.You’ve simply been operating on whatever systems you picked up from the people around you and, hopefully, you now have better systems to test and implement.Productivity and focus are both acquired skillsets.You aren’t born productive and it’s not something that is determined by your genetics. It’s a matter of principles and systems, testing, failing, and figuring out what works for you.So take it easy on yourself as you strive to get more done.The journey will take time, but it will be worth it.Good luck!Closeout this article and go get some shit done!
-
Why has NASA not landed at the poles of Mars, or even sent the Curiosity rover there to sample the ice suspected to be there?
It is not lack of interest. The polar regions are of great interest, for instance the Martian dry ice geysers in Richardson crater, one of the most interesting dynamic processes on Mars and the polar regions also have astrobiological interest too. There are potential habitats there that might even have fresh liquid water within 20 cms of the surface of the ice - of all things to find on Mars with its near vacuum atmosphere.As far as I know the only suggested habitats that might have fresh water on Mars are in polar regions, a layer of fresh water only a few cms thick, 10 to 20 cms below the surface in transparent ice. Thin though that layer may be by Earth standards, it is of extraordinary interest on Mars where any fresh water on the surface would evaporate almost immediately. It is a process that happens beneath clear ice in Antarctica and models show it should happen in the Martian ice sheets too, so long as there is similarly clear ice there.The main potential habitats, which I’ll look at in detail in this answer, are:Flow like features in Richardson Crater that form after the Martian dry ice geysers have erupted (not the same as the ones in the northern hemisphere or the ones in Russell’s crater - there are three different similar looking features that form in different conditions - only the ones in Richardson Crater are of special interest for astrobiology)Liquid water forming around sun warmed grains in snow or icePerchlorate salts lying on layers of ice forms liquid water droplets in tens of minutesLiquid water can exist permanently below 600 meters of ice (100 meters of rock) kept warm by the heat of Mars itself, if it once forms, e.g. after an impactIce fumaroles can mask the heat signature of venting of hot moist gas and make good habitatsAnywhere there is clear ice in polar regions, then fresh liquid water can form at a depth of around 6.5 cms by the solid state greenhouse effect.So it’s exciting for astrobiology, also for geology too, but they are also habitats the Earth microbes could contaminate and by the Outer Space Treaty we have an obligation to prevent “harmful contamination” in the words of the treaty. It also just makes sense. If you are searching for native life on Mars, and most people agree that is one of our top science objectives there, the last thing you want to do is to just find life you brought there yourself.So, before we developed this modern understanding of the potential vulnerability of the polar regions to Earth microbes, NASA made two attempts, the Mars Polar Lander which crashed, and Phoenix which succeeded. However it was as a result of unexpected observations by Phoenix that scientists were lead to the realization that actually there could be habitats there for modern native Mars life - and so since then any landers sent there have to be sterilized to a high standard.We could not send Curiosity there, or a second copy of Phoenix either, because it is now not thought to be sterilized sufficiently. Hopefully it has not contaminated the region of Mars around it with Earth life, but I think the Phoenix landing site might be a great site to visit to get ground truth on how effective our planetary protection measures have been on Mars - but with an appropriately sterilized lander of course.WHY IT IS HARD TO STERILIZE TO THE LEVELS OF THE VIKING MISSIONS IN THE 1970SThe current “gold standard” for Mars is set by the Viking landers.Viking Lander being prepared for dry heat sterilization – this remains the "Gold standard" of present-day planetary protection.After preliminary cleaning similarly to the levels used for Curiosity, they were then heat-treated for 30 hours at 125 °CFive hours at 125 °C would be enough to reduce the population of microbes by ten, so this was enough for a millionfold reduction - that’s including enclosed parts of the spacecraft. It would still have a maximum of 30 spores and so several thousand dormant microbes as the spore count used undercounts the number present by a factor of a hundred or so. But in addition the numbers are reduced by the journey out there, the harsh conditions on Mars, and then a microbe would have to be pre-adapted to the conditions there to have a chance of surviving once there.They didn’t achieve certainty but to a high chance no microbe from Viking was able to replicate and spread on Mars.According to modern planetary protection rules then you could send a spacecraft sterilized like this to the Phoenix landing site.But the problem is that modern equipment is much more miniaturized than for Viking, and made up of thin layers only a few atoms thick and delicate materials including epoxy attachments. Even when space hardened, it tends to be more sensitive and so would not stand being baked in an oven for days like Viking. The components would come unglued and instruments also would go out of alignment.WE HAVE ALSO MADE GREAT PROGRESS IN HIGH TEMPERATURE INSTRUMENTS SINCE VIKINGIt’s not all bad news however, for heat sterilization. Since Viking, while commercial equipment for most purposes have got more sensitive to high temperatures, we have also had many advances in high temperature technology too. The commercial equipment is not built to withstand high temperatures not because it can’t be, but because it doesn’t need to be.High temperature electronics and instruments are used where they are needed and are more capable than in the 1970s. We have them for oil wells as they drill deeper to regions where the temperatures go above 200 C. For planes where they can reduce weight by putting sensors closer to the engines, and for electric cars for similar reasons.NASA has also been working for some time to develop a rover able to withstand Venus surface conditions and drive around and study the surface. With high temperatures, high pressures and sulfuric acid too. Very sterilizing for Earth life.In 2007 they developed a silicon chip capable of 17,000 hours of continuous operation at 500 °C.For their Venus rover, we need cameras to operate at high temperatures, we need mechanisms, we need instruments such as a Raman spectroscopy, we need communications and so on. In their 2010 study they thought all of those were possible for the future. Though they couldn’t build it yet, they saw a way to it as a future roadmap.If the aim is to signNow a high temperature for sterilization, the job may be easier to some extent, as the instruments don’t have to actually function at those high temperatures. They have to withstand being heated to high temperatures for a considerable period of time - but will then operate at normal temperatures.So, if you choose the right components for your lander / rover, we actually have the capability to go beyond what they could in the 1970s and I do think that if we went all out with a major program, as for the Venus rover - that we could design a 100% sterile lander in the near future. It would probably need to use RTGs for the power source - and perhaps also as the heat source for sterilization during the journey to Mars, as these have no problem working at high temperatures. Heat your lander at 500 C for six months on the voyage out to Mars and there would be no life left on it at all. Nothing viable. You can also use techniques like CO2 snow which could be done on the surface of Mars to remove even the dead organics from the outside of the lander.There is one plan already for a sterile probe to descend into the Europan ocean by Brian Wilcox.I think myself that designing a 100% sterile rover / lander should be a top priority. It would be expensive to start with, but well worth it.Once we have built the first one and developed the understanding we would have a basic design there that could be used to explore regions such as the subsurface oceans of Europa and Enceladus and the senstiive sites on Mars even if they have cms thick liquid water or more, and yet not have any concerns about introducing Earth life.The long term pay off would be huge.It would obviously take a lot of ingenuity for the astrobiologists, to redesign instruments to be able to be heat sterilized. They did however succeed for Viking, at the temperatures used there. With the Viking sterilization, tenfold reduction every 5 hours, at a dry heat of 125 °C, in theory you wouldn’t need to continue for that long to have pretty much 100% certainty that there is no life left at all.If anyone knows of any work on this apart from Brian Wilcox’s proposed mission, do say!CURRENT PLANETARY PROTECTION RULESAnyway the current rules are not as strict as that. But they do require a lander to be sterilized to Viking levels or higher if they target regions where there is ice within 5 meters of the surface. The reasoning is that a crash could end up melting the ice.So first here is a map of special regions as updated in 2016, but they also decided that even outside of those regions you need to do case by case studies before landing there.There Are Regions On Mars That It's Forbidden To ExplorePOTENTIAL FOR LIQUID WATER HABITATS IN THE POLAR REGIONS - CALCIUM PERCHLORATE SALTS IN LAYERS ON TOP OF ICEDespite what other answers say here, polar regions do have the potential for liquid water. Even fresh, not salty, water.First the Phoenix lander actually spotted droplets forming on its legs.Unfortunately, it wasn't equipped to analyse them but the leading theory is that these were droplets of salty water. They were observed to grow, merge, and then disappear, presumably as a result of falling off the legs.Nilton Renno, who was on the team for Phoenix and also runs the REM “weather station on Mars” for Curiosity was one of several who investigated various ways for thse droplets to form.He found that liquid water can form very quickly on salt / ice interfaces when the salt is on top of the ice. By “salt” there he means calcium perchlorate salts similar to the salts they found in the Phoenix site.Within a few tens of minutes this salt on top of ice formed droplets of liquid brines in Mars simulation experiments. This is striking as it could open large areas of Mars up as potential sites for microhabitats that life could exploit. The professor says"If we have ice, and then the salt on top of the ice, in a few tens of minutes liquid water forms. Our measurements clearly indicate that. And it's really a proof that liquid water forms at the conditions of the Phoenix landing site when this salt is in contact with the ice. "Based on the results of our experiment, we expect this soft ice that can liquefy perhaps a few days per year, perhaps a few hours a day, almost anywhere on Mars. So going from mid latitudes all the way to the polar regions." This is a small amount of liquid water. But for a bacteria, that would be a huge swimming pool - a little droplet of water is a huge amount of water for a bacteria. So, a small amount of water is enough for you to be able to create conditions for Mars to be habitable today'. And we believe this is possible in the shallow subsurface, and even the surface of the Mars polar region for a few hours per day during the spring."(transcript from 1:48 onwards)That's Nilton Renno, who lead the team of researchers. See also Martian salts must touch ice to make liquid water, study shows . He is a mainstream researcher in the field - a distinguished professor of atmospheric, oceanic and space sciences at Michigan University. For instance, amongst many honours, he received the 2013 NASA Group Achievement Award as member of the Curiosity Rover " for exceptional achievement defining the REMS scientific goals and requirements, developing the instrument suite and investigation, and operating REMS successfully on Mars" and has written many papers on topics such as possible habitats on the present day Mars surface.MOHLMANN’S FRESH WATER FORMING AROUND DUST GRAINS IN SNOW OR ICEThis is another suggested habitat for life in the Mars higher latitudes based on processes that happen in the Antarctic ice. Dust grains in the ice often produce tiny melt ponds around them in the heat of the summer sunshine. The dust grains absorb the heat (preferentially over the ice), and so heat up and melt the surrounding ice. Then this heat gets trapped because of the insulating effect of the solid state greenhouse effect, because ice traps heat radiation, so forming tiny melt ponds of a few millimeters thickness or more. This could happen on Mars too, so is another possible habitat with fresh water.It's just a few millimeters of fresh water, but that could be signNow on Mars. Another example of this process, then meteorites in Antarctica are often found associated with gypsum and other evaporates - minerals that can only form in the presence of liquid water and must have formed after they fell in Antarctica. Sometimes the researchers find capillary water, or thin films of water, and sometimes they even find evidence of a rather large meltwater pond which formed around the meteorite, or find the meteorites in depressions filled with refrozen ice.A similar process could be at work in the Martian icecaps too. This process could melt the ice for a few hours per day in the warmest days of summer, and melt a few mms of ice around each grain. Indeed, if I can venture a speculation of my own, perhaps just as in Antarctica, there could be larger melt ponds around meteorites embedded in the ice too - as Mars must have many meteorites embedded in the polar ice sheets.This could explain another puzzle. Particles of gypsum (the same material that is used to make plaster of paris) have been detected, first in the Olympia Undae dune fields that circle the northern polar ice cap of Mars, See this paper for details. Later on, they were detected in all areas where hydrated minerals have been detected, including sedimentary veneers over the North polar cap, dune fields within the polar ice cap, and the entire Circumpolar Dune Field. There's strong evidence that the gypsum originates from the interior of the ice cap. See this paper for details. Gypsum is a soft mineral that must have been formed close to where it has been discovered (or it would get eroded away by the winds) and as an evaporite mineral, it needs liquid water to form. Opportunity later found veins of gypsum in the equatorial regions, in 2011, a clear sign of flowing water on ancient Mars. But these polar deposits are more of a mystery because they are found in the dust dunes on Mars, so must be produced locally, but where?.Losiak, et al, modeled tiny micron scale dust grains of basalt (2-2 microns in diameter) exposed to full sunlight on the surface of the ice on the warmest days in summer, on the Northern polar ice cap. They found that these tiny dust grains were large enough to provide for five hours of melting which could melt six millimeters of ice below the grain. They say that with pressures close to the triple point, on windless days, you should get a signNow amount of melting. They speculate that this might possibly explain the deposits of gypsum in the polar regions. Could it have formed in a similar way to the gypsum that sometimes forms around Antarctic meteorites?Möhlmann did a similar calculation. This time he was looking at the possibility of liquid water forming inside snow on Mars. The snow would be exposed to the vacuum, but as the ice melted it would plug all the pores in the snow and eventually form a solid crust of ice on the snow, and so protect it from further evaporation. It would trap the heat as well and so encourage melting. This could happen anywhere between a few centimeters depth down to ten meters below the surface.THIN FILMS OF UNDERCOOLED WATER WRAPPED AROUND INDIVIDUAL MICROBESThis is an interesting suggestion by Möhlmann in an article in Cryobiology magazine, that life may be able to make use of thin film monolayers of the " ULI water" (Undercooled Liquid Interfacial water) wrapped around a microbe, even in tiny nanometer scale layers of liquid water only two monolayers thick."In view of Mars it should be mentioned, that there is water ice in the permanent polar caps. At mid- and low-latitudes, ice can form, at least temporarily, via adsorption and freezing in the soil. There, the adsorbed and frozen water overtakes the role of ice, as described above. So, ULI-water can be expected to, at least temporarily, exist also in martian mid- and low-latitudinal subsurface soil. A similar environment can be expected to exist in isolation heated parts of icy bodies in the asteroidal belt, and analogously in the internally heated icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn. It is thus a current and challenging question if ULI-water can act as supporting life in environments with temperatures clearly below 0 °C by delivering that water, which is necessary for metabolic processes, and by permitting transport processes of nutrients and waste. It is the aim of this paper to demonstrate the potential importance of ULI water in view of the possible biological relevance of nanometric undercooled liquid interfacial water."He cites research suggesting life can remain active in the presence of just two monolayers of water wrapped around a microbe.If there is just a small thermal gradient in the ice, of one degree centigrade per meter, then enough liquid water will form to fill a micrometer sized microbe once a month. Enough will form to fill it once a day if there is a locally steeper gradient of one degree centigrade per 10 cm. This can lead to a constant transport of fresh water to bring fresh nutrients to the microbe, and to remove wastes. The main question is whether this is a sufficient flow of water to sustain life. For more details of this intriguing idea, see his article.SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE FLOW-LIKE FEATURES - MAY INVOLVE FRESH WATER CMS THICK!There are two main types of these flow-like features. For a technical overview of them, see the Dune Dark Spots section in Nilton Renno's survey paper. These ones in the southern hemisphere which form in Richardson crater are particularly promising because all the current models involve liquid water in some form and what's more, in the models, these features start off as fresh water trapped under ice.The more interesting ones, for habitability, are in the south. The southern ice cap consists mainly of dry ice. It is colder, and higher up (at a higher altitude). It stretches as far as forty degrees from the pole in winter (so spanning over 4,700 km), but it reduces to just 300 km across in summer, Richardson's crater is 17.4 degrees from the south pole (that's over 1,000 km).So though the features resemble each other in appearance, the conditions in which they form are very different and not directly comparable. The southern hemisphere features from at much higher surface temperatures than the northern hemisphere features, and they appear late in spring, after the rapid disappearance of a vast and thick layer of dry ice that covered the entire southern polar region, and beyond. In the summer then surface temperatures at Richardson crater can actually get above the melting point of ice at times in daytime, as measured by the Thermal Emission Spectrometer on Mars Global Surveyor. (See figure 3 of this paper)..This map shows where the crater is. It is close to the south pole - this is an elevation map showing the location of Richardson crater in Google Mars, and I’ve trimmed it down to the southern hemisphere. You can see Olympus Mons as the obvious large mountain just right of middle, and Hellas Basin as the big depression middle left. Richardson crater is about half way between them and much further south.Here is a close up - see all those ripples of sand dunes on the crater floor?Link to this location on Google MarsWell it’s not the ripples themselves that are of special interest, Mars is covered in many sand dune fields like that planet wide. What interests us are some tiny dark spots that form on them which you can see if you look really closely from orbit.And, would you ever guess? Although it's one of the colder places on Mars, there's a possible habitat for life there in late spring? It is due to the "solid state greenhouse effect" which causes fresh water at 0°C to form below clear ice in Antarctica at a depth of up to a meter, even when surface conditions are bitterly cold.The Warm Seasonal Flows often hit the news (probable salty brines on sun facing slopes). But for some reason, the flow-like features in Richardson crater are only ever mentioned in papers by researchers who specialize in the study of possible habitats for life on Mars.I first learnt about them in the survey of potential habitats on Mars by Nilton Renno, who is an expert in surface conditions on Mars (amongst other things, he now runs the Curiosity weather station on Mars). You can read his survey paper here, Water and Brines on Mars: Current Evidence and Implications for MSL. The models I want to summarize here are described in his section 3.1.2 Dune Dark Spots and Flow-like Features under the sub heading "South Polar Region". But it's in techy language so let's unpack it and explain what it means. I will also go back to the papers he cited, and some later papers on the topic.In the case of Richardson's crater, both models involve liquid water in some form, and also potentially habitable liquid water. One of the two main models involves relatively thick layers of fresh water below optically clear water ice, up to tens of centimeters thick, and so is very promising for microhabitats. The other model involves microscopically thin layers of fresh water that join together to make a larger stream and pick up salts on the way out. That's very promising too. So let's now look at these two ideas in detail.First, early in the year, you get dry ice geysers - which we can’t image directly, but see the dark patches that form as a result and are pretty sure this is what happens:Geysers which erupt through thick sheets of dry ice on Mars. Clear dry ice acts as a solid version of the greenhouse effect, to warm layers at the bottom of the sheet. It is also insulating so helps keep the layers warm overnight. Dry ice of course at those pressures can't form a liquid, so it turns to a gas and then explosively erupts as a geyser. At least that's the generally accepted model to explain why dark spots suddenly form on the surface of sheets of dry ice near the poles in early spring on Mars.So that would be cool enough, to be able to observe them, video them and study them close up. I hope the rover would be equipped with the capability to take real time video. These geysers are widely known and many scientists would tell you how great it would be to look at them up close, and see them actually erupt.But most exciting is what happens later in the year, when it is getting too warm for the thick layers of dry ice needed for geysers. These layers of dry ice vanish rather quickly in spring. You would think that the dark spots that you get in the aftermath of the geysers would just sit there on the surface and gradually fade away ready to repeat the cycle next year. But no. Something very strange happens. Dark fingers being to form and creep down the surface as in this animation. Very quickly too (for Mars). I haven't been able to find a video for this, as the papers just use a sequence of stills, so I combined together some of the images myself into an animation to show the idea:Flow-like features on Dunes in Richardson Crater, Mars. - detail. This flow moves approximately 39 meters in 26 days between the last two frames in the sequenceAll the likely models for these features, to date, involve some form of water. Alternatives that one might try to use to model them might include a second ejection of material by the dry ice geyser, or dust deposition, but researchers think these are unlikely to produce the observed effects.SIMILAR LOOKING FEATURES NOT TO BE CONFUSEDThe Richardson crater flow-like features should not be confused with two rather similar looking features, the dark streaks in Russell crater, 55 degrees from the south pole (compared to 17.4 degrees for Richardson crater).These are braided, divide, recombine and cross each other's tracks. They flow down the slopes channeled by wind formed ridges in the dunes, and most distinctive of all, they are able to rush up over small features of up to two meters high and down the other side.These seem to be dry features associated with defrosting and small dust avalanches as they are episodic, moving rapidly at speeds of 2-4 meters per second like an avalanche. The authors call them "dark flows". For details see this paper.They also should not be confused with the Flow-like features in the Northern polar dunesThe two Martian ice caps are rather different. The northern cap is low lying, mainly ice, with a thin layer of dry ice that disappears in summer. The flow like features in the northern hemisphere form at 12.5 degrees from the pole at surface temperatures of about -90°C, which is low enough for dry ice to be stable on the surface. Their models involve either extremely cold salty brines or dry ice and sand. These features are far too cold to be habitable to Earth life and may not even involve liquid waterThey are easily confused because they are so similar in appearance, and because both are referred to as "flow like features".These are thought to form at much lower temperatures. Some of the models for these also involve liquid water but there are other hypotheses as well, some of them involving dust and ice slipping down the cliff faces.Perhaps one reason the Richardson crater flow-like features get so little attention is that it is easy to confuse them with these other features and assume they have been proved to be dust flows or to form at temperatures to low to be habitable.But they form in different conditions at different temperatures and the explanations used for these other features don’t work for them. Currently the only models for them involve fresh liquid water beneath the ice, either as layers cms thick, or as thin undercooled liquid water layers, then combining with salts to form the flows on the Martian surface.MORE ABOUT THESE FEATURES AND WHY THEY ARE SO INTERESTING FOR HABITABILITYSo, these southern hemisphere flow like features seem very promising. That’s not as surprising as you might think. The same thing happens in Antarctica - if you have clear ice, then you get a layer of pure water half a meter below the ice.The water is trapped by the ice so stays liquid. And what’s more, if they model it assuming clear ice like the ice in Antarctica they find that the ice there gets enough heat from the sun in the day to keep it liquid through the night to the next day so the layer can actually grow from one day to the next (ice is an excellent insulator). Also the Mars atmosphere is so thin that it doesn't matter at all that the air above the ice is very cold in these regions. The atmosphere is a near vacuum and works as a great insulator. Better in some ways than Antarctica.Inuit village, Ecoengineering, near Frobisher Bay on Baffin Island in the mid-19th century - ice and snow are very insulating on Earth or on Mars. Just as you can be snug and warm inside an igloo, a layer of fresh water can stay warm a few tens of cms below the surface, warmed by the sun every day beaming through th clear ice. The near vacuum of the Mars atmosphere helps if anything.Möhlmann's model is pretty clear (abstract here). If Mars has transparent ice like the ice in Antarctica, then it should have layers of liquid fresh water 5 - 10 cm below the surface and a couple of cm in vertical thickness in late spring to summer in this region. His model doesn't involve salt at all, so the water would be fresh water.The only question here is whether clear ice forms on Mars in Mars conditions and whether the ice is sufficiently insulating. We can’t tell that really from models, the only way is to go there and find out for ourselves.Blue wall of an Iceberg on Jökulsárlón, Iceland. On the Earth, Blue ice like this forms as a result of air bubbles squeezed out of glacier ice. This has the right optical and thermal properties to act as a solid state greenhouse, trapping a layer of liquid water that forms 0.1 to 1 meters below the surface. In Möhlmann's model, if ice with similar optical and thermal properties forms on Mars, it could form a layer of liquid water centimeters to decimeters thick, which would form 5 - 10 cm below the surface.In his model, first the ice forms a translucent layer - then as summer approaches, the solid state greenhouse effect raises the temperature of a layer below the surface to 0°C, so melting it.The melting layer is 5 to 10 cm below the surface. In the model, then the ice below the surface is first warmed up in the daytime sunshine, due to a greenhouse effect, the infrared radiation is trapped in the ice in much the same way that carbon dioxide traps heat to keep Earth warm. Then because the ice is so insulating, the heat is retained overnight, and the water remains liquid to the next day. To start with it would be only millimeters thick but over several days, gets to thicknesses of centimeters.He found that subsurface liquid water layers like this can form with surface temperatures as low as -56°C.CREATES POTENTIAL FOR FRESH LIQUID WATER FLOWING ON MARS!This should happen on Mars so long as it has ice with similar properties to Antarctic clear ice.If there is a layer of gravel or stone at just the right depth, the rock absorbs the infrared heat and that can speed up the process. In that case, a liquid layer can form within a single sol, and can evolve over several sols to be as much as several tens of centimeters in thickness. That is a huge amount of liquid water for the Mars surface.The fresh water of course can't flow across the surface of Mars in the near vacuum conditions, as it would either freeze back to ice, or evaporate into the atmosphere. But the idea is that as it spreads out, it then mixes with any salts also brought up by the geyser to produce salty brines which would then remain liquid at the much lower temperatures on the surface and flow beyond the edges to form the extending dark edges of the flow-like features.Later in the year, pressure can build up and cause formation of mini water geysers which may possibly explain the "white collars" that form around the flow-like features towards the end of the season - in their model this is the result of liquid water erupting in mini water geysers and then freezing as white pure water iceThis provides:A way for fresh water to be present on Mars at 0 °C, and to stay liquid under pressure, insulated from the surface conditions.5 to 10 cm below the surface, trapped by the ice above itDepending on conditions, the liquid layer is at least centimeters in thickness, and could be tens of centimeters in thickness.Initially of fresh water, at around 0°C.They mention a couple of caveats for their model, because the surface conditions on Mars at these locations is unknown. First it requires conditions for bare and optically transparent ice fields on Mars translucent to depths of several centimeters, and it's an open question whether this can happen, but there is nothing to rule it out either. Then, the other open question is whether their assumption of low thermal conductivity of the ice, preventing escape of the heat to the surface, is valid on Mars.The process works with blue ice on Earth - but we can't say yet what forms the ice actually takes in these Martian conditions. The authors don't go into any detail about this, but ordinary ice can take different forms even in near vacuum conditions. As an example of this, the ice at the poles of the Moon could be "fluffy ice""We do not know the physical characteristics of this ice—solid, dense ice, or “fairy castle”—snow-like ice would have similar radar properties. [then they give evidence that suggests fluffy ice is a possibility there] " (page 13 of Evidence for water ice on the moon: Results for anomalous polar)That's the main unknown in their model, whether the ice is blue ice like Antarctic ice, or takes some other form. The ice should at least be in the same hexagonal structure crystalline phase as ice is on Earth - Mars is close to the triple point in this ice phase diagramPhase diagram by Cmglee, wikipedia. Ice outside of Earth can be in many different phases. For instance in the outer solar system it is often so cold that it is in the very hard orthorhombic phase, where it behaves more like rock than what we think of as ice. However ice on Mars is likely to be in the Ih phase similar to Earth life. The Mars surface is close to the triple point of solid / liquid / vapour in this diagram. So, the ice is likely to be of the same type as the blue ice in Antarctica. Not likely to have bubbles of air in it. But it could still take a different forms. The model shows that Mars should have layers of liquid water ten to twenty centimeters below the surface if there are any areas of clear blue ice as in Antarctica.This solid state greenhouse effect process favours sun facing slopes (equator facing). Also, somewhat paradoxically, it favours higher latitudes, close to the poles, over lower latitudes, because it needs conditions where surface ice can form on Mars to thicknesses of tens of centimeters. (The examples at Richardson crater are at latitude -72°, longitude 179.4°, so only 18° from the south pole. There is no in situ data yet for these locations, of course, to test the hypothesis. Though some of the predictions for their model could be confirmed by satellite observations.ALTERNATIVE - THIN LAYERS OVER SURFACES MELTING AT WELL BELOW O CAnother model for these southern hemisphere features involves ULI water (Undercooled Liquid Interfacial water) which forms as a thin layer over surfaces and can melt at well below the usual melting point of ice. In Möhlmann's sandwich model, then the interfacial water layer forms on the surfaces of solar heated grains in the ice, which then flows together down the slope. Calculations of downward flow of water shows that several litres a day of water could be supplied to the seepage flows in this way.The idea then is that this ULI water would be the water source for liquid brines which then flow down the surface, mixing with dust, to form the features. That would still be interesting as you end up having flowing liquid water on Mars, several litres a day what’s more. Here is a paper from 2016 describing the idea.See also Möhlmann's paper The three types of liquid water in the surface of present MarsThose are the only two models so far. So it does seem very likely that there is liquid water here, and even with the interfacial liquid layers, the water starts off as fresh water beneath the ice, or possibly salty (in either model) if there are salt grains in the ice for the water to pick up. Either way the features start out as a flow of fresh water trapped beneath a layer of ice. This is one of the least publicized types of habitat on Mars, seldom mentioned outside the specialist literature. Yet in some ways it's one of the most interesting, if it exists, because of the potential for fresh water at 0 °C.This liquid water is hard to observe because the features are so small, beyond the resolution of CRISM. However, analysis of the larger spots, at around the spring equinox, produced a signal that just possibly could be liquid water, where the ice is in contact with the dark material of the dune spots." In the gray ring area the water ice 631 surrounds darker surface, where liquid interfacial water layer or brine (Möhlmann 2004, 632 2009, 2010) may form. We found no firm evidence for the presence of liquid water in near-IR 633 spectra, although linear unmixing results show that the data are not inconsistent with a 634 possible slight contribution (a few %) of liquid water in the dark core unit." page 26 of this paper.MORE WIDESPREAD LIQUID WATER AT DEPTH OF ABOUT 6.3 CM BELOW OPTICALLY CLEAR ICEMöhlmann has also suggested that his process could be a more widespread phenomenon in the Mars ice caps, not just associated with the geysers, as for Antarctica. Just more noticeable for the flow-like features because of the conditions in which it forms there.Liquid water could form at a depth of around 6.3 cm wherever there is optically clear ice on Mars in snow / ice packs, just as it does in Antarctica. In summer, it could form layers from centimeters to tens of centimeters in thickness.Results of Mohmann's modeling of the solid state greenhouse effect in clear ice on Mars. The plateaus show temperatures that get above the melting point of water regularly every Martian sol, at depths of about 6.3 cms. L here is 11.4 cm. Ice at this level will melt periodically, and especially in summer can stay liquid overnight, leading to subsurface liquid water in layers of from cms to tens of cms in thickness. This should happen on Mars not just in the flow-like Features of Richardson crater, but also, anywhere where there is optically clear ice.In another paper he writes "This liquid water can form in sufficient amounts to be relevant for macroscopic physical (rheology, erosion), for chemical, and eventually also for biological processes. "His models seem clear enough. The air temperature hardly matters, because the Mars air is so thin it's a near vacuum, insulating the ice, like a thermos flask. The only unknown here is whether Mars does have optically clear ice like this, which is common on Earth in cold conditions like this in Antarctica.Before I go on to the last couple of examples of possible habitats in the polar regions, let’s just revisit the Phoenix lander site. I think it would be a great place for a mission that’s both interesting for astrobiology and also for ground truth for planetary protection.LIFE IN ICE TOWERS HIDING VOLCANIC VENTSSo, this is another suggestion, that we could find habitats on Mars inside ice fumaroles. It's a nice idea, and perhaps ice fumaroles do form on Mars from time to time. So far we haven't found any on present day Mars. But it may well be worth keeping a look out for them, as it would be a very interesting habitat if we find one, or one of them starts to form, around a volcanic vent on Mars. If Mars does have any volcanic vents which vent water rich gases through a fumarole, they are likely to form ice towers like this, as happens in Antarctica.Let's look at the idea in some more detail. This photo shows an ice fumarole - an ice tower that forms around a vent of volcanic gases in the extremely cold conditions right near the top of Mount Erebus in Antarctica.+ One of the numerous Ice Fumaroles near the summit of Mount Erebus in Antarctica. If these also occur on Mars, they could provide a habitat for life, and would be extremely hard to spot from orbit due to the low external temperatures. Image credit Mount Erebus Volcano ObservatoryFor more photos of ice fumaroles see "Ice Towers and Caves of Mount Erebus",They were originally discovered by the Antarctic explorer Shackleton during his 1908 Nimrod expedition, when he and a few others set out to climb Mount Erebus.Photograph from Shackleton's Mount Erebus expedition with a fumarole in the backgroundHe described them like this."The ice fumaroles are specially remarkable. About fifty of these were visible to us on the track which we followed to and from the crater, and doubtless there were numbers that we did not see. These unique ice-mounds have resulted from the condensation of vapour around the orifices of the fumaroles. It is only under conditions of very low temperature that such structures could exist. No structures like them are known in any other part of the world."Ice caves form below the fumaroles, and these are especially interesting as a habitat for life.Entrance to Warren Cave on Mount Erebus. Credit Brian Hasebe. Volcanically heated, the temperatures inside their three study sites were 32, 52 and 64 degrees Fahrenheit (2,11 and 18 degrees Celsius), far warmer than the surroundings.These ice caves on Erebus are of especial interest for astrobiology, as analogues for habitats outside of Earth, because they are so biologically isolated. Most surface caves are influenced by human activities, or by organics from the surface brought in by animals (e.g. bats) or ground water. These caves at Erebus. are high altitude, yet accessible for study. There is almost no chance of them being affected by photosynthetic based organics, or of animals in a food chain based on photosynthetic life. Also there is no overlying soil to wash down into them.As described in this paper, these ice towers eventually collapse and then rebuild themselves, but though temporary features, they persist for decades. The air inside has 80% to 100% humidity, and up to 3% CO2, and some CO and H2, but almost no CH4 or H2S. Many of the caves are completely dark, so can't support photosynthesis. Organics can only come from the atmosphere, or from ice algae that grow on the surface in summer, which may eventually find their way into the caves through burial and melting. As a result most micro-organisms there are chemolithoautotrophic i.e. microbes that get all of their energy from chemical reactions with the rocks. They don't depend on any other lifeforms to survive. They survive using CO2 fixation and some may use CO oxidization for their metabolism. The main types of microbe found there are Chloroflexi and Acidobacteria.This makes them very interesting as an analogue for Mars habitats. If Mars is currently geologically active, then in such cold conditions, it may well have ice fumaroles around its vents, and if so they would be only a few degrees higher in temperature than the surrounding landscape and hard to spot from orbit. We haven't found these yet. The closest we have got so far is that the silica deposits in Home Plate which Spirit found, might have been formed by ancient fumaroles on Mars, (not necessarily ice fumaroles) though they could also have been formed by hot springs or geysers.This article Martian Hot Spots in NASA's Astrobiology magazine presents Hoffman's ideas. He explains that ice fumaroles on Mars could be up to 30 meters tall in its lower gravity and 10 to 30 meters in diameter, circular or oval in shape. So, potentially these things could grow to be huge on Mars, as high as a nine story high skyscraper, and potentially some of them could be as wide as they are high.He suggests searching for them on Mars from orbit, and he wondered if some temperature anomalies in Hellas Basin could be ice fumaroles. They wouldn't need to be in polar regions because the fumaroles themselves would bring large quantities of water vapour to the surface to keep replenishing the ice towers as they sublime away in the thing Mars atmosphere. They might be quite easy to spot as white circles or ovals, probably in permanently shadowed regions, and they would be slightly warmer than their surroundings. This shows one of his candidates.Daytime infrared from Odyssey IRAnomalous warmth in infrared at night as well on all nine infrared bands, so not a chemical signature.That candidate is in Hellas Planitia and is from 2003. Despite a search of high resolution visual images they were unable to find anything visual corresponding to them, they were only visible in infrared. But it shows the sort of thing they would be looking for. Lots of small dots around 10-30 meters in diameter each, clustered around a potential fracture. For details see their paper.The idea is that just as on Earth, volcanic action could bring water vapour and other gases from below. The water vapour, as in Antarctica, would freeze out to form these ice towers. If these environments do occur on Mars, they would provide a warm environment, high water vapor saturation, and some UV shielding. The ones we have on Earth don't have signNow amounts of liquid water. However, as they have close to 100% humidity inside, that doesn't matter. They sustain microbial communities of oligotrophs, i.e. micro-organisms that survive in environments that are very poor in nutrients. The same could be true of Mars.Though we haven't found ice fumaroles on Mars yet, we have found recently formed rootless cones, which are the results of explosive contact of lava with water or ice. This shows that ice (or water) and lava were in close proximity as recently as around ten million years ago.This shows rootless cones on Mars (to the left) and in Iceland. They are the locations of small explosions of steam, when lava surges over the surface over water or ice. These rootless cones on Mars formed around ten million years ago which shows that Mars has had ice and lava in close proximity very recently. They range in diameter from 20 meters to 300 meters.So, could there be other ways that volcanic processes on Mars produce habitats by interacting with ice, such as the ice fumaroles? From this 2007 paper:Hoffman and Kyle suggested the ice towers of Mt. Erebus as analogues of biological refuges on Mars. They combined the idea of still existing near surface ice deposits with the assumption that there is still some localized volcanic activity on Mars today.There are several examples from Mars that show a direct interaction between lava and ice in the geological history of Mars. The most obvious cases are the rootless cones seen in the northern lowlands. HRSC images show direct and violent interaction in the relatively recent geological history, for example at the scarps of Olympus Mons. Mars today is in relatively dormant phase, and any interactions which might be occurring today are presumably on a much less dynamic scale. Nevertheless, they may be driving local hydrothermal systems. Studying the geothermal processes in the first few tens to hundreds of meters below the surface of Mars today might thus uncover a wide variety of new habitats where biological activity may survive on this cold and dry planet.For more about this topic see Volcano-Ice Interaction as a Microbial Habitat on Earth and Mars. These ice fumaroles would be of great interest, but of course, being open to the surface, would easily be contaminated by Earth life from surface explorers or brought in to them through dust from the Martian storms.So far we've been looking at habitats deep below the surface of Mars, though perhaps connected to the surface. But what about habitats on the surface itself? They would make planetary protection even more of an issue, so it's important to look at the possibility. First we need to look at the question, is surface life possible there at all. Just a decade ago, most scientists (with the exception of Gilbert Levin) would have answered with a resounding "No". But that's all changed.There might also be habitats for native Mars life below the surface similar to lake Vostok in Antarctica - well within signNow of drilling. Searches so far have turned up a blank but they could still be there if the lakes are small up ot a few kilometers in size. They could be as close to the surface as only 100 meters deep below rock, or 600 meters deep below ice and remain liquid indefinitelyICE COVERED LAKES HABITABLE FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS AFTER LARGE IMPACTS - OR INDEFINITELYWhen comet Siding Spring was discovered in 2013, before they knew its trajectory well, there was a small chance that it could hit Mars. Calculations showed it could create a crater of many kilometers in diameter and perhaps a couple of kilometers deep. If a comet like that hit the martian polar regions or higher latitudes, away from the equator, it would create a temporary lake, which life could survive in.Artist's impression of Mars as seen from comet Siding Spring approaching the planet on 9th October 2014. It missed, by less than half the distance to our Moon. But sometimes comets will hit the Mars ice caps or higher latitudes. If that happens, it will create lakes and hydrothermal systems that last for thousands of years.These lakes can last for a surprisingly long time, insulated by the ice and heated from below by the rock. The models suggest that large craters of 100 - 200 km in diameter in the early solar system would have made lakes that stayed liquid for as long as one to ten million years. This happens even in cold conditions, so it is not limited to early Mars. A present day comet a few kilometers in diameter could form a crater 30 - 50 km in diameter and an underground hydrothermal system that remains liquid for thousands of years. The lake is kept heated by the melted rock from the initial impact in hydrothermal systems fed by water from deep underground.Also, there's another way to keep water liquid. Any ice deep enough below the surface, only 100 meters deep, can actually stay liquid indefinitely if covered by an insulating layer of gravel. There'd be enough heat from below, just from the heat of Mars itself and enough insulation above from the gravel, to keep the water permanently liquid. See section 2.2.3 of Niton Renno's article. This is also one theory for the Martian "dry gullies" that they formed through liquid water suddenly flowing out of a subsurface aquifer like this. This was the most popular theory for them at one point, though there are other explanations for them now.It's much harder to keep water liquid below ice, since rock is much more insulating than ice. It's especially hard for water to form below an ice sheet. If the ice cap was four to six kilometers deep, then you'd expect the base of it to be liquid water, melted from below just through the heat of Mars itself. Though Mars does have ice at both poles, its ice sheets aren't quite as deep as that. But it could still have liquid water at the base of its ice sheets, if there's localized geothermal heating from below.Also, if a lake formed, originally by geothermal melting or a meteorite impact, it's much easier to keep the lake liquid than it was to melt the water in the first place. In one model, then if a lake forms at a depth of over 600 meters below the ice (originally open to the surface) then it can remain liquid indefinitely from the heat flux from below, even without local geothermal heating.We'd be able to detect this water using ground penetrating radar because of the high radar contrast between water and ice or rock. MARSIS, the ground penetrating radar on ESA's Mars Express is our best instrument for the job. After several searches, it hasn't found anything yet. See page 191 of this paper. Their resolution isn't that great, however, around a kilometer.From the searches done to date, we can say with reasonable certainty that Mars doesn't seem to have an equivalent of our Lake Vostok (250 km by 50 km by 0.43 km deep) beneath its ice caps at present. It could however still have small subglacial lakes of up to a kilometer or so in diameter. They were looking for water liquid through geothermal heating, but their search would surely have found impact lakes too.So, Mars doesn't seem to have any large lakes created from impacts just now. Nor does it have any major lakes formed through geothermal activity below glaciers or ice caps, though it could have smaller lakes.So in short there are lots of exciting prospects to explore in the polar regions for astrobiologySo far we haven’t even made a start at looking for life there. Or anywhere on Mars except briefly in the 1970s with the Viking landers which produced ambiguous results and have never been followed up.See also myIs This Why We Haven't Found Life On Mars Yet? Value Of Actually LookingLet's Make Sure Astronauts Won't Extinguish Native Mars Life - To Jupiter's Callisto, Saturn's Titan And Beyond - Op EdModern Mars habitability - WikipediaTouch Mars? (book, around 2,000 pages, in a single web page, give it time to load) - this article is based mainly on sections of this bookRemoved section of this answer about the idea of using the Phoenix lander site to test planetary protection ideas - it was long enough anyway and that made it rather long :)
-
Why do many CEOs or business owners systematically dismiss the opinions of their low level employees as "immature" or "non-sense
I like to tell stories on the journey to answering business questions, so I will meander about, but your question will be answered. I’m going to start at the end of my first year of college in and about a psychology class I had to take to satisfy one of those mandatory categories of a degree plan. I was a creating writing major; had not yet figured out I’d never make a dime writing and switched to finance. I already had an A in the class, but we were given the opportunity to do an extra credit project; I didn’t need extra credit — that’s just the kind of student I was.The task was to set up a research protocol using psychological methods to gather experimental data to test hypotheses and then conclude by analyzing and deciding if the data were sufficient to find correlations, confirm or disprove the hypotheses, or if it just didn’t find anything at all. — I faked my experimental data, but I did the research in the library to support my findings.It caught the attention of the teaching assistant (TA) of the professor, who happened to be the chair of the psychology department; she was a master’s candidate, and she approached me after reading my project to see if I’d be interested in being a research assistant (RA) for her advisor. It was a health and psychophysiology lab (HAPPY); we recruited athletes, obese people, moderately in-shape people — and had them take (mostly) written “exams” — not like the exams you have to study for — we called them schedules, likely because the questions asked the subject to rate how much he or she agreed with certain statements based on Likert scales, and the “exam” was a schedule of Likert scales. Heck, I even remember that lists in creative writing are called schedules!The subjects didn’t know it, but what was being researched was if being a well-built athlete affected your self-confidence, happiness, self-actualization, etc., and how the same were affected by different levels of perceived healthiness by each individual.Now, this RA position was normally one offered to graduating (senior) psychology major. I didn’t get paid, but I did get credit for a fancy named course called SPECIAL PROBLEMS, which was 4000-level credit (at a time when I was still mostly in the 2000s), which was graded, but I didn’t have to pay tuition for the credit hours. — That was the tradeoff.After telling the TA that I was, indeed, interested, next I got a call from a professor asking if I’d like to meet her at Starbucks for an informal interview for the position. — Undergrads rarely socialize with professors, especially research professors. You know, there are your teaching professors who keep office hours, and then there are the research professors, who perhaps have graduate students in their role as advisors for master’s theses and doctoral dissertations. — It certainly was new to me.I got the “job,” which for my sophomore semesters put me into contact with upperclassman undergrads, master’s students, a doctoral candidate, and the professor herself. — On my own time, I also continued to formalize my research for my extra-credit project, and probably it was during the spring when I popped into the professor’s office and asked her what the chances were that I could run my experiment on live subjects. — You know, do it for real.She listened to me and seemed interested, or at least feigned it, but she knew something I didn’t know. — You have to get high-level university ethics committees to sign off on your experimentation on live human beings. — I didn’t know that!I mean, what I was proposing to do consisted only of having subjects do (memory) recall tests and other proficiency tests while listening to sounds or music monaurally, left or right, or binaurally. Not a big deal, right? — Well, it’s still experimentation on humans, and — at that — on students of the university.My desire to move forward was not nonsense, but I was immature. Later, I realized that it was only the doctoral student and the professor, of course, who had permission to do those sorts of things. — I volunteered, at night, to aid the doctoral student (who was like the “office manager” for the lab) in her experimental research, which involved investigating how medical students [it’s Houston, of course; no shortages of hospitals, MDs, and medical students] might form biases, during their initial examinations of test subjects, based on their perceptions of the health status of their patients due to the patients’ athletic build, normal build, obesity, etc.So let’s apply some of that here. Who is perceiving the nonsense reception of a low-run person’s ideas? Who decides that these employees are immature, or have immature ideas? Who perceives the employee is sincere and serious (whatever that last one means)?I’m now putting my business cap on, and I’ll tell you that managers/executives make such perceptions of their employees, and employees make perceptions of their managers, and employees make perceptions of themselves. All of these percepts turn into concepts!Your managers have no a priori reason to assume that you are worth more than what you were originally hired for, and you accepted that job. It would be misguided to assume that you have novel ideas just because you have ideas.I had an office assistant, once, who was twenty years my senior (age-wise), and she’d claimed she had a lifetime’s worth of office assistant (admin.) experience. At her immediately previous job, she had the title of Payroll Director.She was with me for over a year, and I never let her do payroll on her own. I let her enter in the basics, and then I’d look over her work and print the checks. Until, one day, I was too busy wearing one of my other hats that I told her to just go ahead with payroll. I mean, by then, she should have it down.When I finally got back to the main office, it was almost 5pm (30 mins before the banks close). She left at 4pm on Fridays, so she was gone. I get a call from one of my main employees.He’s in the drive-thru “motor center” of one of the local banks, and he’s been unable to cash his paycheck because she didn’t stamp the signature line. — Many people will know this, but many signatures, in business, are affixed electronically; or, by facsimile signature. — These carry the same weight as an authorized signer signing the check (so long as the bank has these on your signature card), but they are affixed or inked on by other people — almost by definition, not by the people whose signature is the one that’s being affixed.She had computed his paycheck correctly (I checked), but she put it in an envelope and gave it to the guy without even “signing” it.Luckily, I was working late (as was often the case on Fridays, or any other day), and I got a frantic phone call from my guy, mad as Hell, and rightfully so. I told him to drive around, sign my name on the bottom of the check, and re-present it to the teller. Of course, this set off alarm bells.I’ll tell you that what the teller did next was not appropriate per the bank’s policies. I would know, because a few years before I worked at that bank, at that location, in a position that was not at officer-level but superior to a teller and in the deposit operations arena; tellers who had questions would come to me for approval when they had questions. — And, in fact, I knew the teller.She picked up the phone and called the phone number listed on the check, which got her to me, in the main office, after-hours, and she explained what was going on. — I responded that I was the Chief Financial Officer of XYZ Corp., and that my assistant had made a mistake. I told her that the man trying to cash the check was my employee; that the paycheck was valid; that I had told him to write my name on the signature line, and that it would be, in fact, illegal for me not to pay him on time. She remembered me (if only by voice recognition/statements of identity by phone) and allowed the check to be cashed.Now, remember: it was the office assistant’s suggestion that she could make payroll run easier if she was allowed to finalize paychecks and distribute them without my supervision.One of the construction foremen had asked her, once, joking, “Why doesn’t Jared let you do this?”She laughed, flirted, and said, “I said I would, but he won’t let me!”Per the résumé she submitted, was her ability to do payroll obviously bogus? — No.Have I ever had an office assistant I trusted with payroll? — Darn tootin’. — For whatever it’s worth, she was over 10 years younger than I was, and had no prior business/office experience. She moved over from a fast-food drive-thru. — But, she could do it.When I started out working at this corporation, I had no assistants in the main office, which would be the proverbial back office, but my actions, elsewhere, in operations caused the company to grow. Eventually, the President agreed that I needed to decouple a bit from the day-to-day office duties and focus on maintenance and growth of profit-centers, and that we could hire someone to help me at the cost-center (i.e., the main office).My suggestion was that I hire someone who, perhaps, just graduated with an associate’s in accounting from a local junior college. That way, I could train him/her in my own image, tailored to our unique set of competencies and needs, and that’d be great. — The President, my boss, said all I would do is train him/her up, and then he’d leave. — I acquiesced and hired the 50+ yo person with purported experience.She ended up basically doing nothing more than a receptionist would do, with light bookkeeping, and I had to check her work. — She made careless, but meaningful, errors. She also spent a lot of time looking at “sexy sundresses.”After a year and a half, and me sending her home one day for insubordination, she found a higher paying job in the area, and I gave her a basic recommendation and was not sorry to see her leave. — She wasn’t a bad person. She just thought she knew more than did, and she had no interest in going beyond where she was in her business acumen and diligence.It may seem bonkers that your job actually could be to fight with your boss. Perhaps I should say deliberate. — It’s more of a game.When you are of chief financial value, shared operational value, and other hats not important to list here, sometimes you will find yourself in a position to counter what your boss says. — You are an executive. You are entrusted to run the business when the absolute head of the business is not there. So, it’s not uncommon audibly to disagree with each other — boss and you — President and CFO — and, this is what a CEO/President/Owner needs sometimes.Someone on the inside needs to tell you not to drink your own whiskey.Considering his previous thought process to have been flawed — and yeh, you can say stuff like to your boss — I proceeded to take applications and hired a 19yo. These characteristics had nothing to do with the hiring process, but they’re worth noting. She had not wanted to go to college. She was devoted to her marriage and building a family. She had zero business experience, and her competency was assembling fast food.She was smart, though, in a way that it takes a keen interest to notice. — Sure, this job paid more than a local burger joint, but her family-building interests would motivate her to learn. — That’s just something managers should look for in potential new hires. — She had zip competency to question anything I told her about how things should be done. She would have to learn, and learn from me.It would be a year and a half, as history holds, before I let her do payroll on her own, but less and less of what I previously had to review (e.g., reports for accountants) could be rubber-stamped on her word, before I checked them, because she did them right, consistently, or if she had doubts, she would ask me.She had no presumption, in the beginning, that she knew what was right. — By the time she had that presumption, she was right, and I could focus on the higher level stuff that I really needed to do myself.Kind of like a paycheck can be authorized by a facsimile signature stamp, some other duties can be delegated to others in your name. — Except for the ones that can’t be.Unless you find yourself very close, and often exposed, to the workings and thinking of the main people in charge, you may not understand why they make certain decisions that affect you. You may not know why your thoughts are shot down.In a concrete plant example, your job may be to maintain one truck, keep it fueled, wash it, and ensure it’s going to operate normally.My job, as plant manager & CFO of the corporation, may be — primarily — to turn potentially immediate cash flows into actual immediate cash flows.That doesn’t mean I’m talking about increasing profits. — It could mean that I’m needing something to happen in order to make payroll this week.If you think you know, then I’ll rebut by saying — I can’t always tell you the truth. That doesn’t mean I’m lying to you; it just means that what I’m doing may be none of your business.When you come up with a novel notion about a new truck wash chemical, I may be working on what’s needed to keep us in business. — I may be slow —— verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry slow — to get around to hearing your full argument about something you think is important that, very well, may be in the best interest of the company.What I’m working on often has to do with the continuity of the company (i.e., keeping it a going concern).Now, I can’t usually tell you that kind of stuff. For that, there are many reasons.Someone may not be listening to you, in that sense; he or she may be not hearing you, because we triage.You may have a great idea concerning something. I may be confused about how to keep you on the payroll.That doesn’t mean I think your efforts are immature or nonsense. It means — I care about you — and, in order to keep you, I need to ignore you.For the moment, I hope. — Unless, you really have a stupid idea!
Trusted esignature solution— what our customers are saying
Get legally-binding signatures now!
Related searches to Validate Electronic signature Word Myself
Frequently asked questions
How do i add an electronic signature to a word document?
How to sign a pdf in paint?
How to electronically sign a pdf reddit?
Get more for Validate Electronic signature Word Myself
- How Do I Electronic signature Rhode Island Real Estate Document
- Can I Electronic signature Rhode Island Real Estate PDF
- Can I Electronic signature Rhode Island Real Estate PDF
- How To Electronic signature Rhode Island Real Estate Document
- Help Me With Electronic signature Rhode Island Real Estate Document
- Help Me With Electronic signature Rhode Island Real Estate Document
- How Do I Electronic signature Rhode Island Real Estate Document
- How Can I Electronic signature Rhode Island Real Estate Document
Find out other Validate Electronic signature Word Myself
- Savings account rates and cd time account wells fargo form
- Ds 160 confirmation number sample form
- M t r 19 form excel
- Closing remarks for induction of officers form
- Regional testing center form
- Bm402 form
- Form i 765 40330383
- Iowa workforce development power of attorney form
- Mcnally rebate form
- Nehawu funeral policy contact details form
- Pdffiller youth activities consent form
- Po box 7905 madison wi form
- Patch referral form
- Buckeye sheriff codes form
- Testament voorbeeld pdf form
- Georgia purchase and sale agreement pdf 100089631 form
- Brcc financial aid form
- Telephone consultation form
- Zimmer traction handbook form
- Oscestop drug counselling pdf form