Friday, September 17, 2010
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Desire for life....
- Fear of Wanting.
- The real source of powerful desire.
- The difference between healthy and unhealthy reservations.
- Cultural programming again desire.
- The five great hang-ups about desire, and how to beat them.
- Use the positive power of desire.
- Summary of the ways to beat the anti-desire hang-ups.
Imagine a game show host asking a group of contestants: "If you could have more DESIRE or more CAUTION in life, which would you choose?" Probably you would not be surprised if many people replied, "More caution!" More CAUTION sounds safe at best, and dull at worst; more DESIRE sounds downright dangerous.
Of course, most of us would be far better off with more desire. Desire is the accelerator of life. Press on it, and you start to move; step on it, and you get places fast. On the other hand fear -- the root of caution -- is the handbrake. Pull on it and you stop moving toward what you desire; leave it on and you're stuck at a standstill.
Fear of wanting
Fears and judgments about desire and desiring can make it well-nigh impossible for us to be who we are, express what we want, get what we need, and let go of what gets in the way of all that.
Consider my case, for example: When I feel desire for something or someone, but I am afraid to want, one or more of my hang-ups will come up and my desire may be suppressed, reduced, or even squashed on the spot! As my friend, you'd probably feel sorry for me. You know that scaredy-cats, if they finish at all, finish last.
Fears and judgments about desire and desiring can make it well-nigh impossible for us to be who we are, express what we want, get what we need, and let go of what gets in the way of all that.
Consider my case, for example: When I feel desire for something or someone, but I am afraid to want, one or more of my hang-ups will come up and my desire may be suppressed, reduced, or even squashed on the spot! As my friend, you'd probably feel sorry for me. You know that scaredy-cats, if they finish at all, finish last.
You don't want me to live in fear -- or more to the point, fail to live because of fear. Fear creates reluctance, dilemma, weakness, resistance, discomfort, doubt, aversion -- all the things that make having and holding something not only difficult but, yes, UNDESIRABLE. Moreover, you know me! I can become so problematical when I am fearful that it makes me undesirable even to MYSELF. You would worry that no one will want ME if I am too scared to want THEM.
You know that my happiness depends upon healthy desiring. Desire provides the opening, the motivation, the conviction, the power and the persistence -- all the things that are required for success in anything. When it's strong enough, healthy desire can open the doors to the joys of loving, and even counteract fear and aversion.
You know that my happiness depends upon healthy desiring. Desire provides the opening, the motivation, the conviction, the power and the persistence -- all the things that are required for success in anything. When it's strong enough, healthy desire can open the doors to the joys of loving, and even counteract fear and aversion.
The real source of powerful desire
Where do I GET this strong desire? Where am I to get the power to manifest my wants?
I might plan to get it from pain, for pain creates the desire to avoid pain. I might get it from good experiences, because they restore hope and awareness of the positive possibilities. But actually, I don't need to go anywhere or do anything to get strong desire, because I already have it. It's inside me already. I just have to learn to stop fearing and judging desire to death, and let it be.
Where do I GET this strong desire? Where am I to get the power to manifest my wants?
I might plan to get it from pain, for pain creates the desire to avoid pain. I might get it from good experiences, because they restore hope and awareness of the positive possibilities. But actually, I don't need to go anywhere or do anything to get strong desire, because I already have it. It's inside me already. I just have to learn to stop fearing and judging desire to death, and let it be.
Sure, fear can be useful: there are plenty of rational reasons for hesitations and reservations in approaching the things we want. But not ALL our fears deserve the Sane Housekeeping Seal of Approval. The fact is, ninety percent of the difficulty we experience in getting what we want comes from irrational reservations, not from rational ones. So the good news is, by getting rid of our irrational fears and hang-ups around desiring, we can make it ninety percent easier to get the things we want and need in life.
The difference between healthy and unhealthy reservations
The difference between healthy and unhealthy reservations
To liberate our desires from suppression we must CLEARLY distinguish between healthy reservations and unhealthy hang-ups. Here's the difference: a healthy RESERVATION protects us from bad things only, whereas an unhealthy HANG-UP cuts us off from good things as well. Reservations smooth the way to getting what we truly need, whereas hang-ups block the way. For example, a person who has healthy reservations about sex may intelligently avoid promiscuity. On the other hand, someone who is hung-up about sex may have difficulty enjoying sex even in the context of a monogamous and committed love relationship.
Cultural programming against desire
In our culture guilt and misgivings about wanting -- any kind of wanting -- run deep. Even people who would never characterize themselves as "spiritual" have nevertheless been brought up with the puritanical view that desiring is a sin -- especially, of course, physical desire. All human beings have sexual feelings, desires for touching, desires for companionship, from time to time. It happens to the best of us, and it's no reason to rush off to do penance. Yet most of us interpret those feelings as signs of weakness and impurity.
It would be overly simplistic to suggest that all of our hang-ups around desiring were based on notions of sin and purity. Good old human desire gets bad press from all sides. The spiritual camp blasts desire for being too worldly and unspiritual, maintaining that desiring binds us to the temporal. At the same time, the mainstream crowd rejects desire as too vulnerable, too disorienting, too dangerous. Both criticisms exaggerate whatever truth they hold, making it harder for us to understand the true value and usefulness of desire in human life.
In our culture guilt and misgivings about wanting -- any kind of wanting -- run deep. Even people who would never characterize themselves as "spiritual" have nevertheless been brought up with the puritanical view that desiring is a sin -- especially, of course, physical desire. All human beings have sexual feelings, desires for touching, desires for companionship, from time to time. It happens to the best of us, and it's no reason to rush off to do penance. Yet most of us interpret those feelings as signs of weakness and impurity.
It would be overly simplistic to suggest that all of our hang-ups around desiring were based on notions of sin and purity. Good old human desire gets bad press from all sides. The spiritual camp blasts desire for being too worldly and unspiritual, maintaining that desiring binds us to the temporal. At the same time, the mainstream crowd rejects desire as too vulnerable, too disorienting, too dangerous. Both criticisms exaggerate whatever truth they hold, making it harder for us to understand the true value and usefulness of desire in human life.
But desire is the cause of success, not just the cause of failure. The only way to retrieve desire-power is to overcome our anti-desire programming. That means beating the five great hang-ups about desire.
The five great hang-ups about desire, and how to beat them
There's nothing "great" about these five common hang-ups -- except the number of people who suffer them to one degree or another. They are:
There's nothing "great" about these five common hang-ups -- except the number of people who suffer them to one degree or another. They are:
1. | The spiritual hang-up: the belief that desire is animalistic or unspiritual | ||
2. | The anti-vulnerability hang-up: the belief that desire is too emotionally risky | ||
3. | The loss of self hang-up: the belief that desire will cause us to lose our center, or even our very identity | ||
4. | The fear of intensity hang-up: the belief that desire will spiral upward into feelings which are too strong to handle | ||
5. | The reluctance to trust hang-up: the belief that desire will lead to unsafe/unwise dependency |
How to beat the spiritual hang-up. As we said, the belief that desire is unspiritual is very prevalent in our society.
Example: Some people take the saying "'Tis better to give than to receive" so seriously that they feel uncomfortable pursuing personal goals, asking for help, getting attention, even accepting nurturance when they need it. These people, who have a classic case of the spiritual hang-up, feel guilty doing or wanting anything unless it is "for someone else." |
To get around this hang-up, it helps to have a little perspective on the spiritual ideal at its root. All spiritual teachings suggest that all-embracing universal love (agape) is more mature than desire focused specifically in one human relationship. That point has validity, but the real relationship between agape and human love is not generally well-understood.
How does one learn to love universally? Many affirmations, meditations, and other techniques have been recommended in the spiritual traditions. But contemplation is only a preparation, not a replacement, for the actual practice of loving in real relationships of all kinds. It is appropriate to develop that lofty ability in the only way possible: by doing our best now to love all those we know.
Unloving withdrawal will never do -- not by any standard, worldly or spiritual. Perhaps, in general society we see more basic failures than the failure to love universally -- we see the failure of human relationships, and the collapse of social desire. The usual problem with human life is not too little love, but way too little. Thus it is most important, from a spiritual perspective, that we seize the opportunities we have to love on earth. To love in human terms is far more expansive and spiritual than to fail to love at all.
The real truth is, every child of God wants to love universally, and every child of God also wants to love personally. Ultimately, the two are not truly separate. So-called human love needs to be Divine, or else it is not really love. Surely, if love is something more like egotistical attachment, it falls FAR short of being truly loving. And universal love needs to be human, tender, loyal, and personal, in order to truly touch the human beings who need it.
When you find yourself feeling sinful in your human desiring, don't simply retreat. Instead, challenge yourself to bring the best of your universal love-ability into the specific relationship before you. In only the most egocentric lust-based relationships will you find yourself unable to do that.
So when hesitating on the brink of loving, ask yourself,
"Am I trying to save myself for universal love, or am I trying to avoid loving now?" |
How to beat the anti-vulnerability hang-up. Sure, desire makes us feel vulnerable -- and pursuing our desires is risky business. But does that make desire a bigger risk than not desiring? When it comes to specific opportunities or relationships, it is foolish to gamble on a sure loser. Yet it's equally certain that the only sure way to fail is never to try.
Example: Fear of vulnerability is probably the most common anti-desire hang-up. A person with paralyzing shyness around the opposite sex suffers from this hang-up. So does anyone who is afraid to open up and say what he or she really thinks and feels. Fear of vulnerability also holds people back from fulfilling activities of all kinds, like learning a new skill, trying out for a place on a team or a seat in a musical group, or applying for a better job. |
People who live life to the fullest know that eliminating the vulnerability eliminates the best of all that life has to offer. And so do you! Just take one minute to imagine life WITHOUT vulnerability. You can feel it: Vulnerability is what makes life lively. Life without vulnerability is life without feeling.
They also will testify that the willingness to be vulnerable shows strength, not weakness. A man who doubts his manliness would not allow himself to cry openly, but a man who is certain of his manhood is willing to show his emotions.
With that in mind, when you find yourself feeling vulnerable, and you're tempted to bail out, it may pay to ask yourself this soul-searching question:
With that in mind, when you find yourself feeling vulnerable, and you're tempted to bail out, it may pay to ask yourself this soul-searching question:
"If I cut this desire off, am I refusing to be weak, or am I refusing to be strong?" "If I cut this desire off, am I avoiding failure, or am I avoiding success?" |
How to beat the loss of self hang-up. We almost all experience this hang-up around desire: If we desire someone, or express our needs and desires, somehow we are going to lose all self control and probably lose our entire selves to boot -- Poof! Just like that, we might just disappear. The insanity needle soars off the chart on that one!
Example: Women tend to fear that they will subordinate their own thoughts, feelings, and preferences, and become a "non-person" if they throw themselves wholeheartedly into a love relationship. Men tend to fear that their autonomy and manly identity will be threatened in love. Both of these fears exemplify the loss of self hang-up. |
We must admit how crazy the fear of disappearance is. Otherwise, the kind of desiring it takes to really enjoy oneself (or even BE oneself, for that matter) will simply not be allowed. Real desirers live to tell about it. And they don't come out lacking anything in the existence department. In fact, super-desirers almost always seem far more solidly "selfed" than desire-avoiders.
When you fear disappearing in the act of loving, and think that if you go one step farther your self will be annihilated, try being more realistic. Consider the fact that seriously, no known individual has ever disappeared as a result of loving. Then, ask yourself this:
When you fear disappearing in the act of loving, and think that if you go one step farther your self will be annihilated, try being more realistic. Consider the fact that seriously, no known individual has ever disappeared as a result of loving. Then, ask yourself this:
"Am I trying to keep from disappearing, or from expanding?" "Am I struggling to survive, or am I just struggling to keep my walls up?" |
How to beat the fear of intensity hang-up. Appreciate the real VALUE of intensity: The right kind of intensity -- like the intensity we feel about anything we strongly desire -- can rejuvenate a person, sometimes almost instantly. Intensity is the miracle cleanser that can open clogged passageways of the heart, mind and body. One strong gust of positive intensity, one blast of delicious feelingness, can blow away a host of common diseases: boredom, insecurity, skepticism, apathy, self-pity, and alienation, just to name a few.
Most of us -- even those of us who put great store by autonomy -- intuit the reality of that prodigious healing power of feeling. A single incident comprised of sharing intense feelings of love can put even the most committed skeptic on cloud nine. And when that 'er skeptic comes to work the next day with that special bouncing stride, everyone may notice the profound change in appearance and disposition. Such is the rejuvenating power of intensity.
But as you know, we don't always embrace things that are good for us, even if they make us feel great! Intensity is one of those things. We are unaccustomed to handling the force of our own intense feelings. Rather than rise to the challenge, we tone down our intensity by toning down our desiring.
To run from intensity is to eliminate the peaks and live on the flats. When you find yourself feeling a lot and shying away from the intensity of feeling, ask yourself:
Most of us -- even those of us who put great store by autonomy -- intuit the reality of that prodigious healing power of feeling. A single incident comprised of sharing intense feelings of love can put even the most committed skeptic on cloud nine. And when that 'er skeptic comes to work the next day with that special bouncing stride, everyone may notice the profound change in appearance and disposition. Such is the rejuvenating power of intensity.
But as you know, we don't always embrace things that are good for us, even if they make us feel great! Intensity is one of those things. We are unaccustomed to handling the force of our own intense feelings. Rather than rise to the challenge, we tone down our intensity by toning down our desiring.
To run from intensity is to eliminate the peaks and live on the flats. When you find yourself feeling a lot and shying away from the intensity of feeling, ask yourself:
"When I limit desiring, am I avoiding insufferable intensity, or am I avoiding enlivening, uplifting, healing energy?" |
How to beat the reluctance to trust hang-up. The refusal to trust has become a terrible obstacle to human fulfillment. As social animals we need and depend upon relationships for emotional health and happiness; no man or woman is (or should try to be) an island.
Example: Many people fear that if they place trust in others they will be disappointed, or worse -- taken advantage of, hurt, abandoned. To avoid unhappy endings, they avoid beginning any close relationships. They trade the possibility of being left alone for the certainty of living alone! |
In the light of all this, it is crucial that we distinguish neurotic-hyper-dependency from healthy trust and healthy inter-dependence. So when you are feeling like loving and want to let go, but are afraid to allow yourself to trust, ask yourself:
"Am I really avoiding hyper-dependency here, or am I avoiding healthy dependence and healthy trust?" |
Use the positive power of desire
Desire has a powerful positive place in life. The rule, "Knock and it shall be opened," is valid everywhere. And desire alone knocks. So desire on, wholeheartedly, proud and honest about who you are. What you truly want will come.
SUMMARY OF WAYS TO BEAT THE ANTI-DESIRE HANG-UPS
Beating the Spiritual Hang-Up. Ask yourself: "Am I trying to save myself for universal love or am I trying to avoid loving now?"
Beating the Anti-Vulnerability Hang-Up. Ask yourself: "If I cut this off, am I refusing to be weak, or am I refusing to be strong? If I cut this desire off, am I avoiding failure, or am I avoiding success?"
Beating the Loss of Self Hang-Up. Ask yourself: "Am I trying to keep from disappearing, or from expanding? Am I struggling to survive, or am I just struggling to keep my walls up?"
Beating the Fear of Intensity Hang-Up. Ask yourself: "When I limit desiring, am I avoiding insufferable intensity, or am I avoiding enlivening, uplifting, healing energy?"
Beating the Reluctance to Trust Hang-Up. Ask yourself: "Am I really avoiding hyper-dependency here, or am I avoiding healthy dependence and healthy trust?"
Desire has a powerful positive place in life. The rule, "Knock and it shall be opened," is valid everywhere. And desire alone knocks. So desire on, wholeheartedly, proud and honest about who you are. What you truly want will come.
SUMMARY OF WAYS TO BEAT THE ANTI-DESIRE HANG-UPS
Beating the Spiritual Hang-Up. Ask yourself: "Am I trying to save myself for universal love or am I trying to avoid loving now?"
Beating the Anti-Vulnerability Hang-Up. Ask yourself: "If I cut this off, am I refusing to be weak, or am I refusing to be strong? If I cut this desire off, am I avoiding failure, or am I avoiding success?"
Beating the Loss of Self Hang-Up. Ask yourself: "Am I trying to keep from disappearing, or from expanding? Am I struggling to survive, or am I just struggling to keep my walls up?"
Beating the Fear of Intensity Hang-Up. Ask yourself: "When I limit desiring, am I avoiding insufferable intensity, or am I avoiding enlivening, uplifting, healing energy?"
Beating the Reluctance to Trust Hang-Up. Ask yourself: "Am I really avoiding hyper-dependency here, or am I avoiding healthy dependence and healthy trust?"
Wish
by Evie Bohanan, a sixth-grader from the Ryan Middle School
I wish that when ever something goes wrong
The world would just pause and sing me a song
That God would send raindrops to water my dreams
And make flowers grow from magical beans
I wish that reality would just melt away
And sunlight would come steaming through the dark and dreary gray
I wish that mountains would grow right under my feet
And fairies and dragons I would meet
But all these dreams will always stay wishes
And I'll always me eating off plain ol' dishes
I won't be feasting on big fancy meals
I'll always be eating those microwave deals
Part of me wants these wishes to come true
Part says "Our dreams are our wishes, so don't be blue"
That little inner voice I try to ignore
But if I didn't have these wishes, what else would I wish for ?
I wish that when ever something goes wrong
The world would just pause and sing me a song
That God would send raindrops to water my dreams
And make flowers grow from magical beans
I wish that reality would just melt away
And sunlight would come steaming through the dark and dreary gray
I wish that mountains would grow right under my feet
And fairies and dragons I would meet
But all these dreams will always stay wishes
And I'll always me eating off plain ol' dishes
I won't be feasting on big fancy meals
I'll always be eating those microwave deals
Part of me wants these wishes to come true
Part says "Our dreams are our wishes, so don't be blue"
That little inner voice I try to ignore
But if I didn't have these wishes, what else would I wish for ?
Monday, August 2, 2010
Laying the grid for the electric car (photos)
This week GM revealed the price of its Chevy Volt electric car as the automaker looks to draw buyers looking for a more eco-friendly mode of transportation.
With just a 40-mile range on a charge from an electric power source for the Volt, and about 100 miles for the electric Nissan Leaf, however, drivers will need to always be on the lookout for their next sip of juice. (The Volt does have an internal combustion engine that can recharge the battery en route, extending the range to 340 miles.) Manufacturers call this "range anxiety" and are hoping a new grid of charging stations will lay the foundation for sales of emission-free vehicles.
The city of San Jose, Calif., on Thursday talked up its commitment to the electric vehicle, unveiling the first of 1,600 charging station locations in the Bay Area as part of the Charge Point America program, run by Coulomb Technologies.
With just a 40-mile range on a charge from an electric power source for the Volt, and about 100 miles for the electric Nissan Leaf, however, drivers will need to always be on the lookout for their next sip of juice. (The Volt does have an internal combustion engine that can recharge the battery en route, extending the range to 340 miles.) Manufacturers call this "range anxiety" and are hoping a new grid of charging stations will lay the foundation for sales of emission-free vehicles.
The city of San Jose, Calif., on Thursday talked up its commitment to the electric vehicle, unveiling the first of 1,600 charging station locations in the Bay Area as part of the Charge Point America program, run by Coulomb Technologies.
Spacewalks planned to fix station coolant problem
Trouble with one of the International Space Station's external coolant loops (PDF), used to dissipate the heat generated by the lab's electronics systems, triggered an extensive powerdown late Saturday. NASA managers met Sunday and gave preliminary approval to a difficult two-spacewalk repair job, starting as early as Thursday, to restore the critical system to normal operation.
It is not yet clear what went wrong, but the ammonia pump module that is part of coolant loop A, mounted on the right side of the station's main power truss, failed around 8 p.m. EDT Saturday. A problem somewhere in the system caused a circuit breaker to trip, setting off multiple alarms and waking the crew.
With half the station's cooling gone, flight controllers were forced to shut down two of the station's four U.S. control moment gyroscopes, used to help maintain the lab's orientation in space, one communications channel, several solar power current converters and a variety of computer control boxes known as multiplexer-demultiplexers.
Tracy Caldwell Dyson and Douglas Wheelock assisted with the powerdowns and hooked up jumper cables between the Russian Zarya module and the U.S. segment of the station to prevent additional cooling problems.
"It seems like we're in a sim right now," Caldwell Dyson joked with ground controllers shortly after 1 a.m. Sunday.
The space station remained in a safe configuration throughout, officials said, with critical life support systems, computers and communications gear operating with coolant loop B. The six-member crew, they said, was never in any danger.
"We're going to be working hard overnight to figure out what's going on," astronaut James M. Kelly radioed from mission control shortly before the astronauts went back to bed. "By tomorrow, a little bit later on, hopefully we'll be able to send you up a little bit better idea of where we stand on everything."
Shortly before 6 a.m., flight controllers attempted to restart the stalled pump, resetting the circuit breaker that opened late Saturday. Once again, the crew was awakened by alarms.
"Sorry about that. We thought we had (the alarms) taken care of," mission control radioed, apologizing for another unplanned wake-up call. "We were trying to turn on the loop alpha pump to see if there was any life in it. Unfortunately, we got a recurrence of the problem and it shut down. No other actions at this time for you guys, everything else is nominal, we're still in our jumper contingency configuration."
Later in the morning, engineers restarted one of the two powered-down control moment gyroscopes and while the main bus switching units that direct power to various subsystems ran hotter than normal, engineers said the lab was stable.
The space station features two independent coolant loops that use ammonia circulating through huge radiators to dissipate the heat generated by the station's electronic systems. Each loop is fed by a large tank of ammonia that includes an internal bellows pressurized by nitrogen. That pressurization system allows the loops to handle the periodic expansion and contraction of the ammonia coolant due to temperature changes in orbit.
"Losing one of those loops is very significant," space station flight director Brian Smith said before a shuttle flight last year. "We'd lose cooling capability to half of the electronics on the U.S., European and Japanese part of the space station."
Spare coolant system components, including two pump modules, are mounted on external stowage platforms, one on the left side of the station and the other on the right, just ahead of the Quest airlock module.
Wheelock and Caldwell Dyson already were scheduled to perform a spacewalk Thursday to mount a robot arm attachment fixture to Zarya and to prepare the station for attachment of a new U.S. storage module in November.
Those tasks will now be deferred. Instead, NASA managers gave preliminary approval to a plan that calls for Wheelock and Caldwell Dyson to remove the faulty pump module during a spacewalk no earlier than Thursday. The old unit will be temporarily attached to a mounting fixture and the spare module will be moved from External Storage Platform No. 2 to the S1 truss segment for installation.
It is not yet clear what went wrong, but the ammonia pump module that is part of coolant loop A, mounted on the right side of the station's main power truss, failed around 8 p.m. EDT Saturday. A problem somewhere in the system caused a circuit breaker to trip, setting off multiple alarms and waking the crew.
An ammonia pump module, shown with insulation removed (right) and in place (left).
(Credit: NASA)With half the station's cooling gone, flight controllers were forced to shut down two of the station's four U.S. control moment gyroscopes, used to help maintain the lab's orientation in space, one communications channel, several solar power current converters and a variety of computer control boxes known as multiplexer-demultiplexers.
Tracy Caldwell Dyson and Douglas Wheelock assisted with the powerdowns and hooked up jumper cables between the Russian Zarya module and the U.S. segment of the station to prevent additional cooling problems.
"It seems like we're in a sim right now," Caldwell Dyson joked with ground controllers shortly after 1 a.m. Sunday.
The space station remained in a safe configuration throughout, officials said, with critical life support systems, computers and communications gear operating with coolant loop B. The six-member crew, they said, was never in any danger.
"We're going to be working hard overnight to figure out what's going on," astronaut James M. Kelly radioed from mission control shortly before the astronauts went back to bed. "By tomorrow, a little bit later on, hopefully we'll be able to send you up a little bit better idea of where we stand on everything."
Shortly before 6 a.m., flight controllers attempted to restart the stalled pump, resetting the circuit breaker that opened late Saturday. Once again, the crew was awakened by alarms.
"Sorry about that. We thought we had (the alarms) taken care of," mission control radioed, apologizing for another unplanned wake-up call. "We were trying to turn on the loop alpha pump to see if there was any life in it. Unfortunately, we got a recurrence of the problem and it shut down. No other actions at this time for you guys, everything else is nominal, we're still in our jumper contingency configuration."
Later in the morning, engineers restarted one of the two powered-down control moment gyroscopes and while the main bus switching units that direct power to various subsystems ran hotter than normal, engineers said the lab was stable.
The space station features two independent coolant loops that use ammonia circulating through huge radiators to dissipate the heat generated by the station's electronic systems. Each loop is fed by a large tank of ammonia that includes an internal bellows pressurized by nitrogen. That pressurization system allows the loops to handle the periodic expansion and contraction of the ammonia coolant due to temperature changes in orbit.
"Losing one of those loops is very significant," space station flight director Brian Smith said before a shuttle flight last year. "We'd lose cooling capability to half of the electronics on the U.S., European and Japanese part of the space station."
Spare coolant system components, including two pump modules, are mounted on external stowage platforms, one on the left side of the station and the other on the right, just ahead of the Quest airlock module.
Wheelock and Caldwell Dyson already were scheduled to perform a spacewalk Thursday to mount a robot arm attachment fixture to Zarya and to prepare the station for attachment of a new U.S. storage module in November.
Those tasks will now be deferred. Instead, NASA managers gave preliminary approval to a plan that calls for Wheelock and Caldwell Dyson to remove the faulty pump module during a spacewalk no earlier than Thursday. The old unit will be temporarily attached to a mounting fixture and the spare module will be moved from External Storage Platform No. 2 to the S1 truss segment for installation.
The faulty ammonia pump module that disable a space station coolant loop overnight Saturday is located on the starboard 1, or S1, truss segment. A spare module is mounted on a storage platform near the Quest airlock module. Credit: NASA)
The 780-pound pump module, built by Boeing, will require numerous electrical and ammonia coolant line connections. Flight planners hope to get the new pump mechanically attached by the end of the first spacewalk. A second outing likely will be required two to three days later to make all the connections.
But mission managers caution that the preliminary plan may change, depending on the results of training runs and analysis at the Johnson Space Center. Caldwell Dyson and Wheelock have not rehearsed a pump module replacement, but they completed extensive spacewalk training together before launch.
The ammonia tank on the left side of the station's power truss, part of coolant loop B, was replaced in August 2009. During a flight by the shuttle Discovery last April, astronauts replaced the tank on the right side in coolant loop A. Other than alignment problems and trouble getting a few bolts to engage, the tank swap went well and there were no indications of any major issues. But flight controllers were unable to re-open the main nitrogen valve needed to re-pressurize coolant loop A.
After Discovery undocked, engineers resolved the problem, cooling the valve and using back pressure to get it open. There have been no other obvious signs of trouble with either coolant loop since then.
But mission managers caution that the preliminary plan may change, depending on the results of training runs and analysis at the Johnson Space Center. Caldwell Dyson and Wheelock have not rehearsed a pump module replacement, but they completed extensive spacewalk training together before launch.
The ammonia tank on the left side of the station's power truss, part of coolant loop B, was replaced in August 2009. During a flight by the shuttle Discovery last April, astronauts replaced the tank on the right side in coolant loop A. Other than alignment problems and trouble getting a few bolts to engage, the tank swap went well and there were no indications of any major issues. But flight controllers were unable to re-open the main nitrogen valve needed to re-pressurize coolant loop A.
After Discovery undocked, engineers resolved the problem, cooling the valve and using back pressure to get it open. There have been no other obvious signs of trouble with either coolant loop since then.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
We want to walk into telecom business: Liberty Group
The footwear company has expressed interest to set up a joint venture with ITI Limited, according to sources.
NEW DELHI, INDIA: Liberty Group, a leading Indian footwear company, is exploring entry into the thriving telecom business in the country. As per an official in the Department of Telecom (DoT), Liberty is the only company that has expressed interest to set up a joint venture with ITI Limited.
“Liberty has shown interest in forming JV with ITI but it has asked one month’s time before making the final decision,” said the official, who did not want to be named.
The last date for submitting of bids for forming the JV with ITI was July 15, which has now been extended up to August 23, 2010 as no company had come forward to bid for this joint venture.
There are a number of concerns that the companies have expressed in forming a JV with ITI, which include the location of the ITI plant, reservation quota, tax benefit among others.
ITI Limited, a government enterprise, is running in loss from quite sometime and is a concern for the government. It has three manufacturing plants located in Raebareli and Naini in Uttar Pradesh, while the third plant is in Bangalore.
The queries from prospective bidders with regard to RFP for JV shows that the bidders want to avoid manufacturing in ITI plants located in Uttar Pradesh. Unlike the case of special economic zones (SEZs), the government is not providing any tax holidays for manufacturing telecom equipment in these plants.
The government has provided offset clause of 30 per cent for ITI products under procurement rules of public telecom companies, MTNL and BSNL but this reservation will not be applicable for the new joint venture company.
There is vanilla offering being offered for bidders from the government which includes land and building, which are readily available to the joint venture reducing the gestation period, availability of trained manpower, availability of infrastructure like housing and sharing of existing manufacturing facility on commercial terms etc.
The recent change in UAS license condition may push some companies to form this JV. Apart from this, there are little chances that a company will risk its investment in forming JV with ITI in absence of incentives.
A detailed information by prasoon sreevatsava....
NEW DELHI, INDIA: Liberty Group, a leading Indian footwear company, is exploring entry into the thriving telecom business in the country. As per an official in the Department of Telecom (DoT), Liberty is the only company that has expressed interest to set up a joint venture with ITI Limited.
“Liberty has shown interest in forming JV with ITI but it has asked one month’s time before making the final decision,” said the official, who did not want to be named.
The last date for submitting of bids for forming the JV with ITI was July 15, which has now been extended up to August 23, 2010 as no company had come forward to bid for this joint venture.
There are a number of concerns that the companies have expressed in forming a JV with ITI, which include the location of the ITI plant, reservation quota, tax benefit among others.
ITI Limited, a government enterprise, is running in loss from quite sometime and is a concern for the government. It has three manufacturing plants located in Raebareli and Naini in Uttar Pradesh, while the third plant is in Bangalore.
The queries from prospective bidders with regard to RFP for JV shows that the bidders want to avoid manufacturing in ITI plants located in Uttar Pradesh. Unlike the case of special economic zones (SEZs), the government is not providing any tax holidays for manufacturing telecom equipment in these plants.
The government has provided offset clause of 30 per cent for ITI products under procurement rules of public telecom companies, MTNL and BSNL but this reservation will not be applicable for the new joint venture company.
There is vanilla offering being offered for bidders from the government which includes land and building, which are readily available to the joint venture reducing the gestation period, availability of trained manpower, availability of infrastructure like housing and sharing of existing manufacturing facility on commercial terms etc.
The recent change in UAS license condition may push some companies to form this JV. Apart from this, there are little chances that a company will risk its investment in forming JV with ITI in absence of incentives.
A detailed information by prasoon sreevatsava....
Epic: India's own web-browser
BANGALORE, INDA: Bangalore-based Hidden Reflex today launched Epic, the first web-browser targeting Indian audience powered by Mozilla platform. The browser has been created by a team of Indian engineers.
Addressing the press conference, Alok Bhardwaj, CEO and founder, Hidden Reflex, said, "We’re excited to introduce a unique Indian browsing experience that we hope will reach and resonate with every citizen in the country. As an organization, we foresee huge growth in Internet usage in India. Our aim with Epic is to make it easy even for the first time web users and at the same time powerful enough to be important for advanced users."
One of the features of Epic’s India sidebar, which supports Indian content, is to provide users access to latest national and regional news from popular publications, live television channels, videos, stock quotes, live cricket scores, top music albums, and local events.
Users can also choose from 1500+ customized Indian themes and wallpapers. It also enables user to write in twelve Indian languages on any webpage or on Write, Epic’s free built-in word processor.
R Rajalakshmi, director, STPI, said, "At STPI, we encourage small and start-up companies to use our infrastructure to build new and innovative applications.”
She added, "We must utilize the large talent pool available in India and develop our own innovative products. I hope to see more technologists catch up to the entrepreneurial spirit"
Epic also incorporates free antivirus scanning and healing, the only browser to offer this service.
Epic is the first browser to have a suite of sidebar applications to improve multi-tasking and productivity. Pre-installed applications include communication apps for Facebook, Orkut, Gmail, entertainment apps such as a Picture-in-Picture Video Sidebar and Games, and utilities such as File Backup, My Computer, a To-Do list, and Maps.
Internet user can now download the browser for free by logging onto the company website.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Intel's 50Gbps Silicon Photonics Link: The Future of Interfaces
On Tuesday, Intel demonstrated the world’s first practical data connection using silicon photonics - a 50 gigabit per second optical data connection built around an electrically pumped hybrid silicon laser. They achieved the 50 gigabit/s data rate by multiplexing 4 12.5 gigabit/s wavelengths into one fiber - wavelength division multiplexing. Intel dubbed its demo the “50G Silicon Photonics Link.”
Fiber optic data transmission isn’t anything new - it’s the core of what makes the internet as we know it today possible. What makes Intel’s demonstration unique is that they’ve fabricated the laser primarily out of a low-cost, mass-produceable, highly understood material - silicon.
For years, chip designers and optical scientists alike have dreamt about the possibilities of merging traditional microelectronics and photonics. Superficially, one would expect it to be easy - after all, both fundamentally deal with electromagnetic waves, just at different frequencies (MHz and GHz for microelectronics, THz for optics).
On one side, microelectronics deals with integrated circuits and components such as transistors, copper wires, and the massively understood and employed CMOS manufacturing process. It’s the backbone of microprocessors, and at the core of conventional computing today. Conversely, photonics employes - true to its name - photons, the basic unit of light. Silicon photonics is the use of optical systems that use silicon as the primary optical medium, instead of other more expensive optical materials. Eventually, photonics has the potential to supplant microelectronics with optical analogues of traditional electrical components - but that’s decades away.
Until recently, successfully integrating the two was a complex balance of manufacturing and leveraging photonics only when it was feasible. Material constraints have made photonics effective primarily as a long haul means of getting data from point to point. To a larger extent, this has made sense because copper traces on motherboards have been fast enough, but we’re getting closer and closer to the limit.
Fiber optic data transmission isn’t anything new - it’s the core of what makes the internet as we know it today possible. What makes Intel’s demonstration unique is that they’ve fabricated the laser primarily out of a low-cost, mass-produceable, highly understood material - silicon.
For years, chip designers and optical scientists alike have dreamt about the possibilities of merging traditional microelectronics and photonics. Superficially, one would expect it to be easy - after all, both fundamentally deal with electromagnetic waves, just at different frequencies (MHz and GHz for microelectronics, THz for optics).
On one side, microelectronics deals with integrated circuits and components such as transistors, copper wires, and the massively understood and employed CMOS manufacturing process. It’s the backbone of microprocessors, and at the core of conventional computing today. Conversely, photonics employes - true to its name - photons, the basic unit of light. Silicon photonics is the use of optical systems that use silicon as the primary optical medium, instead of other more expensive optical materials. Eventually, photonics has the potential to supplant microelectronics with optical analogues of traditional electrical components - but that’s decades away.
Until recently, successfully integrating the two was a complex balance of manufacturing and leveraging photonics only when it was feasible. Material constraints have made photonics effective primarily as a long haul means of getting data from point to point. To a larger extent, this has made sense because copper traces on motherboards have been fast enough, but we’re getting closer and closer to the limit.
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