I love CRTs – Fact.

Why?

Is it because they heat my room and give the central heating a rest? No.

Is it because they allow me to fill space that would otherwise be used for unnecessary items? No.

Is it because they trap and attract dust, lightening my workload with the duster? No

Is it because they consume more power and assist me to help my chosen electricity company to increase its’ profits? No.

The reason is that there is no picture equal to a CRT picture.

That is a fact. There is no comparable picture from any flat-screen TFT (Thin Film Transistor (Or LED)) monitor ever built which is able to rival the uniqueness and completeness of the picture on an old CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) monitor.

Simplified Technical Information

The cathode ray tube is exactly what it says on the tin: Basically it’s a tube which has a widened out end with a screen on it, with a thermionic valve at the other end producing three rays of electrons. These electron-rays are propelled along the tube from the valve end, electromagnetically steered by the frame and line coils attached externally around the thin neck of the tube which you normally don’t get to see from the outside of the monitor, and targeted onto many groups of three different tiny dots of reactive phosphor on the inside of the screen; producing light with either a red, green, or blue wavelength. Red, blue, and green are the three primary colours from which all other colours are made up: Yellow, for instance, is just an intense green. White is a mixture of all three colours on proportion to one another. Each cluster of three phosphor dots is being hit by all three electron beams, one beam hitting each dot, many times a second in a process known as scanning: The electromagnetic coils affixed to the tube inside the monitor steer the electron beams to hit the first set of dots; the “red” beam always hits the “red” dot; which is made of a phosphor which emits red light when it is hit by an electron beam, and likewise with the “green” and “blue” beams. (The beams themselves have no colour; in fact they’re invisible. They travel as minutely thin particle-beams within the vacuum (Lack of air molecules that is, rather than a Hoover.) inside the tube until they strike a phosphor dot on the screen, producing light accordingly.) After hitting the first cluster of dots the beam is fired at the second set of dots…and so on at incredible speed; so fast in fact that the human eye doesn’t perceive it, but rather sees a complete picture. After the entire screen has been covered and all the clusters have been hit the process happens again. The number of times per second this process happens is the screen’s “refresh rate”, and is controlled from the computer’s  graphics chip, with a relevant GUI (Graphical User Interface) in Windows operating the chip’s settings by means of Direct X – Which provides an interface between the Windows operating system itself and the components of the computer.

(If you use a CRT monitor and the screen appears to flicker; try setting the refresh rate frequency to at least 80Hz: Anything less tends to cause eye-strain from a CRT monitor.)

Why Better?

So that’s very roughly how it works; but why does it produce a better picture? The gun electrodes of each of the sections of the valve producing the three electron-rays can have their electrical potential varied to a greater extent, more easily, and faster, than each individual transistor in a TFT monitor. Since the same electrical terminal’s electrical potential affects the entire picture in a CRT, rather than each individual transistor’s electrical potential, as in a TFT, this doesn’t necessitate the relevant circuitry to work at such a high speed in the case of a CRT, thus giving less chance of error due to lack of responsiveness of given components: For instance if the first, third, fifth… cluster was required to be a bright pixel and the second, fourth, sixth… cluster was required to be a dim pixel, a CRT monitor would simply increase the voltage on the gun-anode as the electron beams fired at the first cluster, then decrease the gun-anode’s voltage on the second cluster, and so on… A TFT monitor, however, first has to digitally address the first set of transistors corresponding to the first pixel and increase their voltage, then digitally address the second set of transistors corresponding to the second pixel and decrease their voltage…and so on: Therefore the digital circuitry in the TFT monitor has to work many times faster than the analogue circuitry on the CRT monitor. Quite obviously technology has found a way around this problem to a certain extent by using complex algorithms and digital matrices, as well as the increased switching frequencies of individual transistors on a silicon wafer; but still overall CRTs are better and can reproduce better and more colours as a result.

The Conundrum

That’s the technical bit covered very basically although not at all thoroughly: It gives you a very rough idea of what’s going on. The real conundrum, however, is in relation to the human eye and the claimed colour reproduction statistics of TFT vs. CRT monitors: According to statistics; a decent TFT monitor is capable of accurately reproducing 24 million colours; whereas a CRT monitor is capable of accurately reproducing 32 million colours. Seeing as the human eye, according to scientists, is only capable of perceiving 24 million colours, it should follow that a CRT monitor, by all logic, should appear to give no better picture than a TFT monitor. However this is clearly not the case; therefore someone somewhere is cooking the books; as the figures just don’t add up.

This is where I jump off and leave you with the conundrum. (I didn’t state I’d solve it myself anywhere did I?) The question is, bearing in mind the figures I’ve just presented, why is a CRT picture still so much better than a TFT picture? If you have any ideas then your comments are invited.

Would anyone like to provide any enlightenment?

 ©KKomp 2008

If you’ve been watching the computer industry at all then you’ll be aware of the following:

If you are looking to get a new machine and you want to have Windows XP instead of Vista preinstalled, make a note on your calendar that June 30th 2008 is the last day major manufacturers will be able to sell machines loaded with Windows XP. Whether or not you like Windows Vista, it is currently and unfortunately the future for Windows until Windows Seven is released; probably 2H 2009. although Microsoft have added to the confusion and have recently confirmed both a 2009 and a 2010 release. .

That’s it for the major manufacturers, BUT the smaller white box builders such as Kustom Komputa (http://www.kustomkomputa.co.uk) and similar, can continue supplying pre-installed XP until end of January 2009. – So if you’re thinking of getting hold of a system preloaded with good ol’ XP then you have some time to do so: Nevertheless the clock is ticking; and the deadline is fast approaching.

Public Opinion

So will the Microsoft Life Cycle’s bell tolling be the death knell for XP? Millions of users worldwide would say not: In a recent ZDnet opinion poll more people indicated that they would definitely still be using XP by 2014 – The final MS support cut-off date – than otherwise. Microsoft are in danger of getting a reputation as killjoys; and despite protest and petitions they appear determined to give XP the boot regardless of anyone or anything else. This appears to be a bit short-sighted on their part: After the joke known as Windows ME was launched, M$ excelled themselves with XP; and after teething troubles were removed by SPs 1 and 2, it became a good, stable, and reliable operating system.

Vista

Vista, on the other hand, is far from stable or reliable in its original form. It may still be early days to some extent, but even SP1 hasn’t brought Vista with its huge system resource demands up to the standard acheived by XP on less-powerful hardware. All operating systems have teething troubles, but Vista appears to have grown fangs and bitten its creators: When Vista was launched there was very little hardware available capable of running it. Hardware manufacturers scrambled to get their act together and eventually delivered the goods; but the new os was putting on a bug-circus for all the world to see; and commentators dubbed it the next ME. No don’t get me wrong; it’s not an “Everybody hates Vista” situation: I personally know of at least one individual who perfers it, and fair play to them. The reality is that XP works, works well, and is tried and tested: Vista though, is slightly slower than XP, still has bugs to a certain extent, and is generally deferred in favour of XP. Why then are Microsoft trying to kill it off? They are aiming a gun at their foot and squeezing the trigger perhaps?

Bad Commerce?

The Product Lifecycle policy of M$ has been set in stone for some years now, and it appears M$ are sticking to it no matter what. Of late Microsoft have gained a reputation for holding back development, as they did with their massive monopoly in previous years resulting in a number of lawsuits filed against them – And they still seem to have difficulty moving with the times. Perhaps it may be an idea for M$ to realise that their policies, although in their best interests several years ago when they had the upper hand in virtually every sector, are of a past era and are in need of updating? Let’s look at it in terms of simple reality: If you had launched a product which, even after 5 years, was the most popular product of its type out there and was still selling; and in the meantime you’d launched a similar upgraded version of that product which never really took off, what would you do? If you’re M$ you’d withdraw he popular product from sale and try to force everyone to buy the new less-popular product: What would your customers do? Some would stay loyal admittedly, but some would use another company’s product – Mac, Linux Etc.: You’d reduce your existing customer base by doing so, and that wouldn’t be in your interests as a business – But Microsoft are doing just that: No wonder Bill Gates is getting out while the going’s good!

So will XP ever die? Eventually and obviously yes, but when will it die is a difficult question to answer: For the forseeable future, although maybe on borrowed time, XP will continue. After the launch of Windows 7, though, who knows? Windows 7 could be the actual death-knell for XP, but then again maybe not: Time alone will tell. 

 ©KKomp 2008

 I’ve put this article in the Business section when it would be equally or more at home in the Religious section perhaps; but since I don’t have and don’t intend to have a religious section it stays put.

First let me say before I start off on this topic; if you’re of a religious nature and you feel that you may be offended by this post then you have the choice right now to stop reading it. If you do read it and get offended in doing so then remember that you chose to read it; nobody forced you to do so and you were subtly warned before you did so: Therefore the responsibility for your getting offended lies with you.

I want to stop reading this post.

Final warning: This is an extremely irreligious post of a very forthright nature. IF you read past this point and become in any way offended then I absolve myself of any and all responsibility for any offence caused.

This is an extremely dodgy subject to cover; as some people can get very offended and very funny about having, or appearing to have, their religious beliefs challenged in any way: I’m not trying to be nice herein; neither am I intending to offend anyone: I’m being what I consider to be factual: You may or may not agree and you may or may not like what you read. If anyone is offended by facts in the light of reality, by a complete lack of belief in the traditional one-god mainstream teaching of most religions, and/or being taken beyond their comfort zone then read no further.

Firstly; what do I mean by “book” religions?

The answer to that is written on the tin: Religions that rely on books such as The Bible, the Koran, The Book of Whatever… ‘All “book religions”.

Why/how do they “defeat success”?

All book religions that I know of teach that you are nothing, hopeless, useless, lost, worthless, unless you rely on some superbeing or another in the sky or beyond in some different unspecified, unknown, unseen, unquantified, and probably unreal, sphere of existance: They all and without fail demean and belittle you as a person in some way or another. That’s not going to help anyone in business one little bit – Especially if you sincerely beleive that you’re going to be roasted alive or otherwise similarly tortured forever for being your true self and showing any leadership/resillience and believing totally and unerringly in yourself and your abilities, no matter how or why they may be limited to any extent in whatever way.

My Religious Experience

Now if I ever did manage to find any concrete proof or evidence that it was true that you or I or anyone were really worthless without relying upon some invisible mystery superbeing in another sphere of existance, then I might just be motivated to look a little deeper into it. However as someone who has looked extremely deeply into it already and seen nothing but torture, powermongering, victimisation, and repression in almost all the various guises of this impossible supercreature who lives so far away that he can’t even visit us: Even though his followers teach that he made us and that he loves us - Either I’ve missed the obvious, having being brought up with religion shoved into seemingly every available orifice at any given opportunity, or I’m right in concluding that religion stands in the way of true self-fulfillment.

Having taken a break from a life of being bashed with a Bible, having become an Agnostic after leaving home and setting out on my own – During which time over a period of over 14 years I carefully personally studied many different religious beleifs/doctrines, and weighed up the evidence for/against - I think after over 40 years of life I’m right in saying that it’s all in the main a load of politically-inspired superstition, originally aimed at controlling and subverting the “electorate” to do the will of the politicians disguised as the will of “God” (Allah/Jehovah/Yaweh/Hyli Salassi/David Icke/whoever.); and that it has no place in the lives of real and successful people today.

“God” Bless Warfare

Something that has always made me wonder about it all was that from a child I’ve always seen that “God” always blesses your country, whoever you may be, and is against all others who are on the side of the enemy when you go to war; whether you be American, Israeli, Afghanistani, Pakistani, German, British, Argentinian, whatever. Why? My understanding is that the military leaders would have you believe that if you get killed for your country then you’ll be blessed by this “God” chappie and spend eternity in luxury in a place outside of time and space called whatever they call it where you live: Heaven, Paradise, So-Va-Kor, whatever. This is supposed to make it worth getting killed for someone’s political gains – Well where do you think the fable first started? Did someone come back from this magickal realm many years ago and say:-

“Hey guess what: If you get killed so that King Whoever can have another few fields in his territory, or so that Queen Boudica/Boadicea can beat the Romans, or whatever, you go to this great place…”

Frankly and obviously not: It seems obvious that the military leaders made it up so that people wouldn’t mind dieing for their cause – And people still think like that today: It’s quite incredible considering the many advancements that have been made since; but people still throw away their life for the same fantasy to this day.

Creationists

Creationists especially get right up my tits: They justify their claims that their ”God” exists in a similar manner to this: “The universe is so wonderfully made that it had to have a designer, and that designer was “God: Your house didn’t just appear like it is did it? It had to have a designer and a builder…”

I’m sorry but that is just baseless assumption upon baseless assumption: First they assume that they know every detail of the entire universe in order to be able to say that it had a designer. They follow this with another assumption that this designer of a wonderfully-made universe that they somehow got the blueprint to and memorised it in full detail is their “God”: How sanctimonius! To add insult to injury they drag my house into it too: Did a rock on the slopes of Mount Whatever have to be designed and built by a skilled craftsperson also? No it was hewn out of the mountain over millions of years by nature – And its design is in fact many times more complex than my house ever was is if you study it in minute detail. Ask a Creationist to quote the Second Law of Thermodynamics and I guarantee they’ll always misquote it: The second Law of Thermodynamics states that :

“In an isolated system, a process can occur only if it increases the total entropy of the system.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics

If this is true then evolution, the Creationist’s pet hate, is possible – So creationists leave a bit of it out and state it thus:

“A process can occur only if it increases the total entropy of a [given] system.”

 - Making evolution now appear, if this were true, to be impossible. – And they really get my goat because they lie and misquote at will to try to prove their point. One Creationist even told me about a conversation between Aldous Huxley and Charles Darwin in which Darwin allegedly claimed that his theory of evolution was erroneus. The problem is that Charles Darwin died before Aldous Huxley was even born! OK rant over.

Repression and Control

Please do believe what you want to believe if you must; but remember it’s all a fable, a myth – And ultimately a control mechanism designed by the powerful to make you feel powerless. Not only does it drain away all of a person’s self-confidence and self-image but it also subjugates that person to the control of the politicofascist religion-mongers via their underlings who pose as church-leaders and the like. In short it takes a human being, strips them of their humanity and personality, attaches a remotely-controlled manipulation device to them, and dumps them in a basket full of processed clones: That’s the reality of it; praise “God”.

I did say you might not like it didn’t I? You’ve read up to this point though, so we may as well carry on:

Conclusion

You might not believe this but I do in fact have a religion: I’m now a Pagan; because it’s right for me personally. (No I said a Pagan not a Satanist – The two are quite different.)

http://rampant-griffon.net/paganplace/basics/pagan.html 

I believe that there are more powerful entities both “spiritual” and physical, on earth and “out there” (None of which are going to “roast me” for being a success in my own right.): But they don’t pay my bills or buy my product. Only humans do that, at least so far; so I’m concentrating on humanity. Considering I won’t work for a pittance to make someone else rich I have several choices: I can sit here in poverty and fear of eternal torture from some invisible super-entity for whom no evidence of that being’s actual validity as anything more than an ancient myth exists; praying for some money until and if I by chance win the lottery or find some money that someone’s lost I call it an ‘act of “God”‘, I can ask “God” whether “God” minds me being myself and wait for something to happen that I can classify by some stretch of the imagination as an answer, I can do nothing, or I can stay as I am and get out there and work for myself from my own merits to make some serious money and live in relative comfort now: Unsurprisingly only one of those four options will get me anywhere; so I know which one I’ll choose.

Unless you’d rather work to make someone else rich for less than one percent of their gross income, or continue doing so in fear of eternal torture because “God” says it’s right to do so; you’ll probably agree that there is absolutely no business advantage in religion unless you know and associate as an equal with some influential people who share the same beliefs and/or fund your church: Apart from that one exception I rest my case.

If any religious nutters out there want to send me any hate mail having read this then I’ll send it on to your pastor, as well as the local police, and as a further act of charity I won’t even charge you the postage.

This is the Pagangirl for kkomp.com - going beyond.

Blessed Be.

x

 ©KKomp 2008

With the Facebook explosion, and many other social networking sites scrambling to jump onto the bandwagon; psychologists and employers, particularly in America, are beginning to worry about people’s compulsion to spend more time social networking and less time working and socialising with people in a real-world environment: The latest trend in the addiction-market is internet addiction, and that doesn’t just apply to Facebook and/or social networking in general.

While the internet has become an essential part of 21st Century life; both on a secular and a social level. American companies are becoming worried about the number of hours spent on social networking at work: Statistics show that the average American with internet access at work spends approximately 1.7 hours of the working day communicating with their “friends” and otherwise using social networking, resulting in lost productivity. It’s not just industry that is being affected by this trend though; America as a continent is spending a lot of time outside of work and education interacting on Facebook and the like. Even American students are abandoning time from completing theses and assignments to spend more time online on these social networking sites.

So that’s happening in America; but how does it affect us across the pond in the UK? Well there’s an old saying that if it happens in America it’ll happen over here soon: But personally I don’t think it’ll happen to such an extent here. Why not? Well for a start, employers in the UK tend to monitor and restrict internet access from workplaces to a much greater extent than in the USA; in addition to which good ol’ behind-the-times Blighty is only in the last couple of years starting to fully utilise the internet’s potential in the workplace in general. As for the leisure time internet activity though; there may well be a strong case of “As over there, so over here.”.

UK Impact

So other than being another way for psychologists to drain your purse or wallet, what does this mean for the world? I can only answer that from my personal opinion based upon the facts presented to me in addition to my own internet “addiction”: To my mind the internet was one of the the best things ever invented, on a par with the personal computer and cat’s eyes on roads. What is better: To be a tv addict as some people were before the internet’s place in our lives came to the fore and to moronically gaze at a screen in a trance as a “couch potato” watching the inane drivel that the programmers decided that people wanted to watch, or to be an internet “addict”; choosing your own “programming”, whilst at the same time interacting with other people online, developing social interaction skills remotely from the comfort of indoors, and gaining a wider audience for one’s own personal publishings?

The Couch Potato Syndrome

After reading the paragraph above you’re now asking me ”Were you a couch-potato?” as well as saying “Not everyone was a couch-potato before the internet came along.” I’ll deal with those in that order: I was in danger of becoming a couch-potato at one point; though going into detail would be boring and take up lots of space as well as being off-topic and outside of the scope of this article. Quite obviously not everyone was a couch potato; but, as was the case with me, nobody had a decent medium on which to exchange ideas and allow their persona to blossom other than within a tight-knit group of friends, or if they were lucky enough to get published by a publisher in print, by writing a book. Now; however, everyone has the chance to express themselves to the entire world; and just as with writing a book, the public have exactly the same choice as to whether they want to read or ignore that author – The difference being that the author doesn’t need to have a lot of luck, and to spend a lot of time, money, and effort, to have their work published.

A Little About This Author:

I’m a blogger: A rookie (Novice) blogger to some extent admittedly, having worked my way from ametuer computer programmer on the old Commodore Pet computer, BBC B, Amiga; to buying my first PC and publishing by means of direct (Not spam) email, then on Usenet to the newsgroups in a limited capacity, to an msn group I formed (No longer in existence), a Windows Live Space (One Space Beyond Infinity), and recently here on my own personal blog on my own domain. Although I continue to build unique personal computers for people (http://www.kustomkomputa.co.uk) and work in my technical capacity, ( I also have a City & Guilds 300 and 301 in electronics, which has been a lifelong interest as a hobby to me along with, from my teens onwards, all or many aspects of computing.) I have taken up blogging in a serious way recently.

As a writer and technically-oriented person I found it difficult in the past to be able to get people to recognise my potential; there being literally thousands plus applicants for every single opportunity, and I rarely if ever seemed to get the lucky break I needed and feel I deserved: I seem to remember the best I could get as far as being published goes in the 20th Century was an offer from some bodge-it-and-scarper publishing house for a limited publishing for which I would initially stomp up £1500 , and if the book took off they’d continue publishing for free: Well the £1500 wasn’t too much of a problem if I’d put my mind to it; but I fortunately saw through their scam: “For free” meant no charge to myself; and it also meant no royalties to myself had I gone ahead and produced a bestseller: Quite logically I told them where to stick it.

With the advent of the internet giving me the ability to publish for no more than the cost of a computer which I self-built, plus peripherals, electricity used, and time spent writing; costs are slashed and I have the opportunity to publish to a worldwide audience. The downside is that there are literally millions of blogs out there, and once again I need Lady Luck rather than Lady Muck on my side to get into or near to the top slot in the blogging community. I’ve often thought that if I could cleverly make an extremely good advertisment which was so liked it went viral… I’ll keep working on that.

Back to the Topic…

…So what the hell has this to do with internet addiction? Well; I spend at least ten hours a day on  average on the internet bashing the keyboard or viewing sites, web conferencing, emailing…blah. Question: Am I an internet addict? Personally I find Facebook boring and fickle: I think I’d rather watch Emmerdale…no perhaps not, but I just don’t see what the big fuss is about. Each to their own. I do however like and use Twitter, and here I’ll interject a few pieces written by David Risley on the subject of Twitter:

The following excerpts have been reproduced from the works of and with the kind permission of David Risley; owner and founder of http://www.PCMech.com 

Please follow davidrisley on Twitter.

“Why Use Twitter At All?”

“Twitter is worth using because it allows you to tap into the power of others instantaneously. Want to share a thought with others? You can. Want a quick answer to a question? You can get one on Twitter. Want to find out what the latest buzz is before others do? Twitter.”

“If you are not on Twitter, I suggest you give it a go.”

(The full article exists in a members-only communication from PC Mech by David Risley. It is available upon request pending subscription to PC Mech. (Which is well worth doing if you’re a geek.))

So if I’m an internet addict then so much the better to my mind: I suggest other people do likewise if that’s the case: The only aspect of life that might become neglected is exercise; but self-discipline is called for here; and all should be in order. As I mentioned earlier; this internet addiction thing is a new way of swelling the coffers of psychologists – But could there be more to it? Plainly and frankly yes in some cases; but I attribute it more to media scaremongering than to a new social ill: Let’s face it, every time anything happens the news media make a horror story out of it: They discover a hole in the ozone layer of the atmosphere at the South Pole and a smaller one at the North Pole at the end of the 20th Century – And please do remember that this is the first time anyone has ever looked at the ozone layer as a whole -The media instantly start scaremongering about worldwide catastrophe, global warming, environmental destruction. Nobody stopped and asked the question “How long had those holes in the ozone layer been there before they were noticed?” The answer might just be up to four billion years! – But the media used it to sell papers anyway: Fair enough; but I consider it unethical to attempt to scare the general population in doing so. Anyway I have the feeling that internet addiction is just another media scare-story in the absence of anything else to write about; and if it does increase the profits of psychologists and the like then good for them: They have to make a living too.

The real problem is lost work hours. My answer is leniency to a degree; but if a worker would rather be constantly on Facebook than do the work they’re paid to do then stop paying them; simple as that: Give them all the time they need to use Facebook or any other social networking: Let it be their choice depending on how much they want to earn. If they want to use their place of employment as an internet cafe then charge them the appropriate rate from their earnings: What could be fairer?

Finally youths and schoolkids: If the choice is between hanging around the streets bored, taking drugs, and making trouble; or being an internet “addict”, then personally I’d take the obvious choice for my child – Once homework’s done I see no reason why not go on the internet - With the correct parental restrictions in place of course.

Target Neutralised

Internet addiction – The new cyber-crack? My drug of choice – And why not eh?

Media-inspired frenzy? Probably.

Moneymaker? Hopefully.

 ©KKomp 2008

Twenty-four little hours – With the sun and the showers, where there used to be rain.

OK it’s an old song and you probably know the lyrics. The song is about how someone else has changed her life for the better: It’s Looove; and that great “new love” feeling has set her heart on fire. She’s walking on cloud nine and flying through the universe on a breeze…

Of course we all actually realise that that sort of thing is only temporary…At least I hope we all do: While it’s a great feeling and good for overall emotional and physical health, it only lasts as long as it lasts; then it’s gone, and reality bites again: The bills continue to come in, the problems that were there before are still there, and have got worse through neglect – And now freedom’s limited too: There’s someone else in her life, and there is life outside the bedroom:-

What has it all accomplished? The answer is, on average, sweet Fanny Adams at the end of the day: that’s not to say that being in love is bad for anyone, but a beter song IMO would be “Sisters Are Doing it For Themselves” – Without the unintentional double entendre’ it is a fact that what someone else does for one is, in most cases, only temporary; whereas when one accomplishes acheivments on their own behalf, one has not only a feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment, but also one can make the accomplishment last a lifetime and build upon that/those accomplishment/s with further accomplishments. When one has stacked accomplishment upon accomplishment upon accomplishment one has a wall: The Wall of Success, and nobody can demolish it fully no matter how hard they try. It becomes one’s personal sheild against the negativities of life.

This is true not only in a physical sense: In a personal psychological sense the same holds true; but the psychological is the forerunner of the physical: When one has a wall of Positive Mental Attitude (‘Good ol’ PMA!) built from blocks of positivity, confidence, happiness, and productive efficient proactive thinking; one then has what it takes to screen out the crap that life pushes at everyone – No the crap doesn’t bounce off or take evasive action: The crap hits as hard as ever; but since the wall of PMA is more positive than the crap is negative then the wall dissolves the crap because the positive personality of the person in question; and let’s hope that person is you, deals with it and neutralises it.

What happens when a mind full of positivity and ingenuity, of creativity and abundant goodness communicates with or works with anything? The positivity and the goodness comes out too and dissolves crap; making the objects or situations it’s working with cleaner, brighter, and more positive; more desirable. A mind full of crap, on the other hand, has the opposite effect. If the wall of PMA isn’t there the crap gets in unchallenged. There is a saying that is very true, but for a different reason than originally intended: “Shit sticks” – If crap gets into one’s mind, life, being, it’ll stay there and it’s difficult to clean it out afterward; so powerful is the negative. Negativity can be empowered very easily: Positivity also but only by means of PMA. Negativity appears to be the default pattern – Positivity takes that little bit of extra effort.

Once one’s thinking pattern and one’s entire world view are positive then one has inner contentment: That is the first step by means of which one can start to self-motivatedly build the wall of acheivement. Nobody’s going to do it for you mind: Even if they try it’ll only be temporary. As soon as they take a break or turn their back the wall comes tumbling down and the crap sees a line of attack and bam! The only person who can make ‘you’ a success is you by means of your own acheivement; and that’ll only happen through a combination of, not just all aspects of PMA, but also determination, motivation, self-discipline, persistance, and continuity.

The ladder of success has many rungs; and surprisingly most of those rungs are made of failure: Every step of failure is a positive step of experience, and is a step closer to success. That can be paraphrased as “If at first you don’t succeed; try, try again”; remembering of course that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly in exactly the same way and expecting different results”. Therefore “If at first you don’t succeed; try, try again using a different method to acheive the same ends. I cite the example of Thomas Alva Edison, a 19th century American inventor, who, along with a couple of associates set out on a quest to bring light to everyone – Literally: Between 1850 and 1892, (Yes that is 42 years: Your calculation was correct.) he, Joseph Swan, Charles Brush, and others, developed, by trying and testing many methods, sometimes in competition and sometimes in collaberation with one another, the electric light bulb. I can just imagine that failure must have followed failure after failure in the case of each of them; but by sheer persistance and determination they succeeded, and their invention is still in use worldwide to a certain extent at the time of writing this article some 116 years after the initial project’s completion. See http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/lightbulb.htm

Maybe you won’t be remembered in 116 years time, and maybe you won’t invent anything as major as Edison and Co did: Then again perhaps you will; but not if you give up and allow the crap in.

That’s all: Lecture over. What are you waiting for? Get out there; do it, and win! Start building your internal wall of PMA at the very least, and as you become stronger as a person and gain in self-confidence you might like to try your hand at laying a few physical blocks of success as foundations for the forthcoming Wall of Acheivement? Set its completion as your goal, divide up the ensuing process into sub-goals, make a chart and plot your progress why not? – Only the losers will laugh at you; and at the end of the day they’ll still be losers so who cares? Today could be your lucky day; and what a difference a day would make then eh?!

Are you still here? -Well I suppose you deserve a break after reading all this lot: Treat yourself to a coffee or whatever you prefer, and pretend it’s on me. Thanks for reading; now make something out of it that you can use to further yourself.

©KKomp 2008