Personality is such a unique thing, so individual. It’s both an inner force that shapes and filters our thoughts and actions and an outer shield that we project to identify ourselves to others and to protect our inner self from harm. It’s our essence, isn’t it? If we feel something we feel it via our perception filters, which are embedded in our personality. If we do something we do it in alignment with who we are and how we think. If we meet and greet someone we project our personality onto our outer skin, or hide it from harm if we don’t wish to expose ourselves. How we make those decisions, whether to be open or closed, jolly or sombre, deep or shallow, is very much up to us, our past experiences and our reaction to the environment around us at the time. If we step outside our skins to act out a fantasy, or shift our perceptions or behaviours to fit into social or work situations, that’s entirely within our control. We may have some ingrained beliefs and “default” options to fall back on but we are powerfully human and mutable to suit the need. You need to be tough-minded to do a job, so you do it. You don’t sit there thinking ‘I’m an introvert and I can’t do this’. Well maybe you do. Point is, only you know what you are thinking.
Unless of course you believe in personality tests. Or believe that they are meaningful, or that they tell you something useful. Personality tests are meant to map you to a fixed number of “qualities” and degrees of belonging within each quality. It is of course labelling – and again it’s very human to want to do this – and it’s tempting to believe that in answering a multitude of carefully selected questions we will be lured into revealing our inner natures, our core drivers. Now I love these tests, I really do. They are great fun. And sometimes I get those “oooh-ahhh” moments when I think yes, it really is me. It really is. But then I get the same feelings from a good astrology reading. Where lies the truth?
I think the jury is still out. It hasn’t been sufficiently demonstrated that personality can be measured, or deduced from cunning questions. We can’t even be utterly sure that you and I are reading the same meanings into the same questions, or that we have the same truthful intent when answering. And we certainly can’t reliably predict our behaviours, let alone our work performance, from our personality assessment. We actually have powerful, possibly unique human thinking processes that let us adapt ourselves to suit the need. That’s why we are at the top of the food chain, not down the bottom with only pre-written reactive programs to help us find food and survive.
Which is why I get the creeps when I read stuff like this: “They thought he was a surface guy. They didn’t think he was deep enough to be the ceo,” says Carlick. But he aced the Myers-Briggs personality test they made him take, and he became chief in February 2004″. Oh please. Is it possible to “ace” the MBTI? I think the journalist in question means that the personality type indicated by the test results is strongly correlated with being a CEO. That is to say that some brilliant researchers somewhere have done a large number of MBTI assessments on many CEOs and have found a statistically powerful connection between certain personality types and those that occupy the top job. Hopefully these same researchers have dug deeper and found that this correlation holds true for successful CEOs and that there’s some defining characteristic that sets them apart from unsuccessful CEOs. Otherwise you may just be repeating the same hiring patterns of the past, irrespective of performance outcomes. And proponents will say exactly that, that they have correlated MBTI results with job roles and successful behaviours. If so, where’s that compelling data? I’ve looked, it’s just not there.
And how do you know for sure what’s going on inside someone’s mind when they complete the MBTI? What if they are lying? And are good at it?
And why don’t we all just give up, accept our labelling and go do what “they” tell us we would be good at? Is my blood boiling? You bet!
Of course there’s a postscript. Having “aced” the MBTI the CEO in question went on to “rename the company Intermix, nixed half a dozen failing businesses and gave MySpace Chief Chris DeWolfe free rein and more resources. MySpace grew from 1,000,000 members to 24 million by October 2005, when Rosenblatt sold Intermix to Fox for $650 million–an eightfold increase from the company’s value on day he arrived. Rosenblatt walked off with $23 million.” Well that proves it, doesn’t it?
What is it about Germany and doping? Jan has never been caught, possibly because he’s innocent. T-Mobile apparently had a few problems keeping EPO away from their riders for a while. And German TV keeps on threatening pullouts from major events if anyone else gets caught. (But isn’t getting caught a good thing?) Worse still for cycling fans who just want to see some racing, the World Champs are on in Germany this year. So let the fun begin.
Firstly, let’s ban a few people from attending and even looking on. Via CN: The organizers of the Worlds in Stuttgart had already asked previous ambassadors Rudi Altig and Erik Zabel not to attend, later adding the names of Gianni Bugno and Eddy Merckx. Cyclingnews confirmed Bugno to be in Stuttgart, where he won his first Worlds’ title 16 years ago.
Now let’s ban some more people who may actually win the road race. From CN: Paolo Bettini and Patrick Lefevere have both denied alleged statements by Patrik Sinkewitz that Bettini supplied the Italian with testosterone products while they were both on Lefevere’s Mapei/Quick.Step team. The charges were made public yesterday by the German TV sender ZDF, which claimed to have notes from an interrogation of the German rider. Sinkewitz’ attorney has also denied that his client said that.
So Sinkewitz (who was a doper and got caught) is quoted as having said something that he now denies saying, apparently. On that basis let’s exclude Bettini from the race, despite his denials, and Di Luca too as he has had abnormal hormone readings this year. Again from CN: Italian ProTour leader Danilo Di Luca withdrew from the World Road Race Championships on Thursday, calling his treatment “a scandal”. The Italian bowed to pressure from the Stuttgart organisers who objected to the participation of the Giro d’Italia Champion who has been the subject of two separate doping investigations this year.
And on with the racing.
What is it about Germany and doping? Jan has never been caught, possibly because he’s innocent. T-Mobile apparently had a few problems keeping EPO away from their riders for a while. And German TV keeps on threatening pullouts from major events if anyone else gets caught. (But isn’t getting caught a good thing?) Worse still for cycling fans who just want to see some racing, the World Champs are on in Germany this year. So let the fun begin.
Firstly, let’s ban a few people from attending and even looking on. Via CN: The organizers of the Worlds in Stuttgart had already asked previous ambassadors Rudi Altig and Erik Zabel not to attend, later adding the names of Gianni Bugno and Eddy Merckx. Cyclingnews confirmed Bugno to be in Stuttgart, where he won his first Worlds’ title 16 years ago.
Now let’s ban some more people who may actually win the road race. From CN: Paolo Bettini and Patrick Lefevere have both denied alleged statements by Patrik Sinkewitz that Bettini supplied the Italian with testosterone products while they were both on Lefevere’s Mapei/Quick.Step team. The charges were made public yesterday by the German TV sender ZDF, which claimed to have notes from an interrogation of the German rider. Sinkewitz’ attorney has also denied that his client said that.
So Sinkewitz (who was a doper and got caught) is quoted as having said something that he now denies saying, apparently. On that basis let’s exclude Bettini from the race, despite his denials, and Di Luca too as he has had abnormal hormone readings this year. Again from CN: Italian ProTour leader Danilo Di Luca withdrew from the World Road Race Championships on Thursday, calling his treatment “a scandal”. The Italian bowed to pressure from the Stuttgart organisers who objected to the participation of the Giro d’Italia Champion who has been the subject of two separate doping investigations this year.
And on with the racing.
I’ll try to keep it interesting and varied with just a touch of dry historical stuff and some images to prove it.
Filed under Australia, Sydney by Rob.
I’ll try to keep it interesting and varied with just a touch of dry historical stuff and some images to prove it.
Filed under Australia, Sydney by Rob.
A climate resource provided by climate scientists? I started reading and couldn’t stop: RealClimate.org
I’ll let you decide how real it is… I found it via Sun Micro’s OpenEco.org, btw. Excellent idea to ‘open source’ climate change support software.
Well I like these dusty, moody shots from 1975, anyway…
Filed under Sydney by Rob.
Originally an oil on canvas painting, then photographed and scanned and ‘shopped until…
Originally an oil on canvas painting, then photographed and scanned and ‘shopped until…
Instead of just accepting what’s in the car company press release. Over and over again the car companies talk about clean, green hydrogen-fueled cars being “the next big thing” but never explain where all of this hydrogen comes from, or when the distribution infrastructure will arrive, and how it will be safely transported in usable (highly compressed) volumes through our communities… instead they trumpet how close it all is to being real but don’t explain how it will be made real.
But at least one journo has put 2 and 2 together, at last, from Jerry Flint at thecarconnection.com: Here’s the point: all of these developments, except for the ethanol, involve the engines, but they don’t change the distribution system. They don’t require new fuels or new ways of getting these fuels to the corner stations or from the corner station to the car. They don’t tear up the system or require new ways of distribution. They will be costly, probably thousands of dollars a car, but it will be the same car. Now think of what this mean for hydrogen. Hydrogen has promise. It burns, you can run a car on it, it emits no pollutants nor any earth-warming gases, like CO2. The waste product is water. That’s all wonderful. No pollution, no earth-warming gas, and kiss $80 oil goodbye. The problems are many. Where does the hydrogen come from? Whether it is burned as a fuel in fuel tanks, or used to prime fuel cells (which create electric current to run the car), hydrogen is hard to get. It’s plentiful, after all, in all that H2O, but breaking it free is difficult and costly.
And don’t forget that this is just the fuel… we have to spend energy to make and distribute the cars themselves, too, no matter whether they are “clean and green” or not.
Instead of just accepting what’s in the car company press release, a journo who thinks?
Over and over again the car companies talk about clean, green hydrogen-fueled cars being “the next big thing” but never explain where all of this hydrogen comes from, or when the distribution infrastructure will arrive, and how it will be safely transported in usable (highly compressed) volumes through our communities… instead they trumpet how close it all is to being real but don’t explain how it will be made real. But at least one journo has put 2 and 2 together, at last, from Jerry Flint at thecarconnection.com:
“Here’s the point: all of these developments, except for the ethanol, involve the engines, but they don’t change the distribution system. They don’t require new fuels or new ways of getting these fuels to the corner stations or from the corner station to the car. They don’t tear up the system or require new ways of distribution. They will be costly, probably thousands of dollars a car, but it will be the same car. Now think of what this mean for hydrogen. Hydrogen has promise. It burns, you can run a car on it, it emits no pollutants nor any earth-warming gases, like CO2. The waste product is water. That’s all wonderful. No pollution, no earth-warming gas, and kiss $80 oil goodbye. The problems are many. Where does the hydrogen come from? Whether it is burned as a fuel in fuel tanks, or used to prime fuel cells (which create electric current to run the car), hydrogen is hard to get. It’s plentiful, after all, in all that H2O, but breaking it free is difficult and costly.”
And don’t forget that this is just the fuel… we have to spend energy to make and distribute the cars themselves, too, no matter whether they are “clean and green” or not.
Filed under Global Warming by Rob.
Instead of just accepting what’s in the car company press release, a journo who thinks?
Over and over again the car companies talk about clean, green hydrogen-fueled cars being “the next big thing” but never explain where all of this hydrogen comes from, or when the distribution infrastructure will arrive, and how it will be safely transported in usable (highly compressed) volumes through our communities… instead they trumpet how close it all is to being real but don’t explain how it will be made real. But at least one journo has put 2 and 2 together, at last, from Jerry Flint at thecarconnection.com:
“Here’s the point: all of these developments, except for the ethanol, involve the engines, but they don’t change the distribution system. They don’t require new fuels or new ways of getting these fuels to the corner stations or from the corner station to the car. They don’t tear up the system or require new ways of distribution. They will be costly, probably thousands of dollars a car, but it will be the same car. Now think of what this mean for hydrogen. Hydrogen has promise. It burns, you can run a car on it, it emits no pollutants nor any earth-warming gases, like CO2. The waste product is water. That’s all wonderful. No pollution, no earth-warming gas, and kiss $80 oil goodbye. The problems are many. Where does the hydrogen come from? Whether it is burned as a fuel in fuel tanks, or used to prime fuel cells (which create electric current to run the car), hydrogen is hard to get. It’s plentiful, after all, in all that H2O, but breaking it free is difficult and costly.”
And don’t forget that this is just the fuel… we have to spend energy to make and distribute the cars themselves, too, no matter whether they are “clean and green” or not.
Filed under Global Warming by Rob.
Just for contrast we have 2 sides of the doping story on Cyclingnews.com. We have Jaksche confessing and commenting on others, like this: Looking at various Tour de France performances, Jaksche said that he could not comment on Alberto Contador and Michael Rasmussen because he “was not at the Tour and therefore can’t judge them. But one thing is sure, there are still doping methods which cannot be proved.” He did comment on Linus Gerdemann, however, noting that Gerdemann rode well one day and not the next, and said that “Gerdemann rides like one who is clean.”
And we have Ullrich in denial whilst we read about his as yet unexplained bank account transactions to Fuentes: Prosecutors in Bonn, Germany, continue to make their way through Jan Ullrich’s Bank records. They have now come up with “suspicious cash withdrawals”, the dates of which correspond to notes in Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes’ records, Focus magazine has reported. The magazine also reports that there is evidence that Ullrich and his mentor Rudy Pevenage flew repeatedly to Madrid..
Filed under Jaksche, Ullrich by Rob.
Just for contrast we have 2 sides of the doping story on Cyclingnews.com. We have Jaksche confessing and commenting on others, like this: Looking at various Tour de France performances, Jaksche said that he could not comment on Alberto Contador and Michael Rasmussen because he “was not at the Tour and therefore can’t judge them. But one thing is sure, there are still doping methods which cannot be proved.” He did comment on Linus Gerdemann, however, noting that Gerdemann rode well one day and not the next, and said that “Gerdemann rides like one who is clean.”
And we have Ullrich in denial whilst we read about his as yet unexplained bank account transactions to Fuentes: Prosecutors in Bonn, Germany, continue to make their way through Jan Ullrich’s Bank records. They have now come up with “suspicious cash withdrawals”, the dates of which correspond to notes in Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes’ records, Focus magazine has reported. The magazine also reports that there is evidence that Ullrich and his mentor Rudy Pevenage flew repeatedly to Madrid..
Filed under Jaksche, Ullrich by Rob.
Nice to see Samuel Sanchez and his Euskaltel-Euskadi team do so well in this race, but still a shame to see Evans knocked back another peg, and off the podium. It was on the cards after yesterday’s faltering stage but given his still-recent efforts in Le Tour probably not surprising to see him now off his peak. Good to see Menchov claim the title without relying upon a doping-disqual this time. He was probably motivated to prove he was worthy without relying upon the failings of others. Or he just like to win.
From CN: Samu’ has taken a step onto the final Vuelta a España podium in style. 29 year-old Samuel Sánchez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) won the 20-kilometre time trial in Villalba by 12 seconds over Denis Menchov (Rabobank) and 14 over Stef Clement (Bouygues Telecom) in third. By winning his third stage of the 2007 Vuelta and gaining 19 seconds over Cadel Evans (Predictor-Lotto) he was able to move up onto the podium – a position he should keep when the three-week race concludes tomorrow in Madrid.
Nice to see Samuel Sanchez and his Euskaltel-Euskadi team do so well in this race, but still a shame to see Evans knocked back another peg, and off the podium. It was on the cards after yesterday’s faltering stage but given his still-recent efforts in Le Tour probably not surprising to see him now off his peak. Good to see Menchov claim the title without relying upon a doping-disqual this time. He was probably motivated to prove he was worthy without relying upon the failings of others. Or he just like to win.
From CN: Samu’ has taken a step onto the final Vuelta a España podium in style. 29 year-old Samuel Sánchez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) won the 20-kilometre time trial in Villalba by 12 seconds over Denis Menchov (Rabobank) and 14 over Stef Clement (Bouygues Telecom) in third. By winning his third stage of the 2007 Vuelta and gaining 19 seconds over Cadel Evans (Predictor-Lotto) he was able to move up onto the podium – a position he should keep when the three-week race concludes tomorrow in Madrid.
2 stage wins now for Sanchez and he moves to within seconds of 3rd place overall. Tomorrow is a 20km TT and it hard to imagine Evans giving up any time to anyone at this stage, especially so since he lost time on this stage to a glued-on Menchov and an aggressive Sastre, dropping one place in the process. Still, Cadel obviously suffered today and may be at the edge…
General classification after stage 19 1 Denis Menchov (Rus) Rabobank 77.59.17 2 Carlos Sastre (Spa) Team CSC 3.02 3 Cadel Evans (Aus) Predictor – Lotto 3.49 4 Samuel Sánchez (Spa) Euskaltel – Euskadi 3.58
2 stage wins now for Sanchez and he moves to within seconds of 3rd place overall. Tomorrow is a 20km TT and it hard to imagine Evans giving up any time to anyone at this stage, especially so since he lost time on this stage to a glued-on Menchov and an aggressive Sastre, dropping one place in the process. Still, Cadel obviously suffered today and may be at the edge…
General classification after stage 19 1 Denis Menchov (Rus) Rabobank 77.59.17 2 Carlos Sastre (Spa) Team CSC 3.02 3 Cadel Evans (Aus) Predictor – Lotto 3.49 4 Samuel Sánchez (Spa) Euskaltel – Euskadi 3.58
“Car! Car! Car!” He’s done it seemingly spontaneously – “car” came hot on the heels of “dad”, “mum” and “that” in his now 18 month-old vocabulary. Neither of our girls took to the car with such delight and obvious enthusiasm, so maybe (on this small sample) it’s genetic? It wouldn’t surprise me if it is, as cars are basically a male-centric invention and should appeal, I would happily assert, to boys more than girls. If you agree there’s a sex-difference in how our brains are wired, of course, then this is but one expression of that.
So please accept that to be the case, or not. In any event most of our Western world has been shaped – driven even – by men, not women, so we have an immediate imbalance in how we address the world. We have sized and shaped our manufactured world around what fits the male taste and then we males have complained bitterly when women generally fail either to appreciate or to fully comprehend the marvelousness of it all. Look at map reading for instance. Men come up with the concept and then laugh at those who don’t quite so naturally grasp the visio-spatial relationship between a 2-D map and the 3-D (plus time) real world. Of course some men also have a problem with maps, but they often hide that fact and join in the laughter when a woman gets the map reading wrong. OK, I generalize, but it’s called setting someone up for failure and “we” have done it over and over again, be it intentionally or not.
Whilst all of that is percolating through my brain I was asked by a market research firm just how excited I was about some new styles of Coca-Cola packaging. Whoopee. Actually it’s not the sort of thing I get excited about I’m afraid. Like toilet paper it has its uses but it’s not a big part of my day. Actually toilet paper has far more of a daily impact on me than Coca Cola or any other soft-drink. And I guess most people are like me – we may have our tastes and preferences but we don’t actually get too passionate about daily necessities or trivial wants. I may be wrong, I certainly prefer Coke over Pepsi, but it’s not at the forefront of my thinking, either.
But in this modern world we do get passionate about some things, and often they are not clearly so connected with our real needs but more with unreal wants. Cars again spring to mind. Why do people – mostly men – get passionate about cars? Sure they matter, but not so much that you have to polish and protect them like some prized rare religious artefact. Cars seem to tap into something that mere transport never could. Walking doesn’t rise above more than ‘useful’ and an occasional past-time for most people, yet many car-owners take every aspect of their transportation device and worship it. We even invent tribal passions about cars where none logically should exist. We become fiercely loyal to GM or Ford, or Alfa Romeo or Ferrari, or whatever brand we choose – regardless that it really doesn’t matter. The differences are so slight between the comparative utility of these same-type vehicles that it should really matter which one we buy. They all work, so why pay a premium? Oh, status you say?
OK, so cars are exciting in a way that just going for a walk isn’t. There’s no status in walking, although it looks healthy it’s usually frowned upon and made difficult by poor footpaths and inconsiderate car drivers charging around trying to hit pedestrians. But cars have style, substance and make noise in a way that attracts attention – if only so we get out of the way before we get hit. And we have managed somehow to drive the car’s market penetration on the back not just of utility but indeed of that tribalism and deep inner want to both fit in and show off. Again the automobile makers just love this, that buyers not just select their purchase on the basis of utility and value but that they “stick” to a brand and continue to feed them money. Indeed more money if they can get that “status” thing happening.
Which brings me back to this game of life and the imperfection of it all. I think I’ll go for a walk.
Cars. I like them, I really do. 200 years ago only the most intrepid or desperate of us ventured outside of our villages, and it involved great risk to do so. In some measure the automobile and its accompanying infrastructure has facilitated the breaking down of barriers between villages, towns and cities, even more so than the train or ship. It has made it far more practical to go and visit the unknown and opened the eyes of many more people to the fact that there really is nothing to fear but fear itself. It’s akin to what the aeroplane has done to help break down barriers between wider geographies, like nations themselves. Of course cars and planes are not the only factors – trade is a big one, and breaking down barriers to trade has probably had a bigger impact again. The idea that a country or region has to be self-sufficient and can’t rely to any great extent on other regions persists today but has fewer supporters. In this new global world we have more trade because we have a more fair and open approach to markets; and the gains made include a more peaceful relationship between nations as well as vastly more trade and thus economic activity. On the back of that we see more air, road and sea traffic between cities and nations.
This increased traffic and freer trade (it’s not perfect yet and imbalances abound) has allowed our economic system to drive increased specialization and a greater reliance upon more efficient producers, wherever they may be. Unfortunately part of the success of that system has relied upon subsidized oil. Because it seems so important to trade, we have fostered an imperfect market based on unreal costs. Now’s a great time to look at those costs and start balancing the equation to set things right. We need to preserve the good effects of almost-frictionless trading whilst pricing the oil, coal and gas appropriately, in a way that reflects the real costs.
Which really is my thought for the day. Perhaps the IT industry will assist us in keeping the barriers down between nations, if the Internet is kept free and open with no massive vested interests (like governments and corporates) dominating and blocking communication. Of course it’s not always free and open now, and there are always limits set, openly or by stealth. I have no easy answer, but there are some tough decisions to be made all round, aren’t there?
It was a more tactical, difficult stage and a big break got going, with Luis Perez Rodriguez first over the line. Evans and Menchov proved strongest, but Sastre the most aggressive and dangerous to the leaders. Efimkin weakened, dropping to 4th overall. Evans now 2nd, with Menchov looking solid on top of the GC.
From CN: Luis Pérez Rodriguez has signed off on 13 years as a professional cyclist in style. The 33 year-old Spaniard of Andalucia-Cayasur, who will retire on Sunday, won the 18th stage of the Vuelta a España to Ávila. Pérez Rodriguez powered clear of an escape group of race overall favourites at 10 kilometres to go.
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