Tuesday, November 17, 2009

4 Tips For The Successful Businessman

by Joop Liefaard

I have a passion for the bald eagle or Haliaeetus Leucocephalus
according to his scientific name. I have this passion as long as
I can remember. But it is not a logical passion. I am Dutch and
a passion for a bird of prey that is common in The Netherlands
would be more obvious. But life is full of inexplicable surprises
and left me with this passion for the bald eagle, the national
symbol of the United States of America. I have seen the
eagles only once in my life in their natural habitat and that
was during a holiday in British Columbia in Canada.

When I read about bald eagles and about the way they live, I
always start thinking about what a businessman can learn from
them in order to become successful and that is what this article
is about.

1. Vision

Bald eagles are birds that can often be found on very high
altitudes. There they soar and with their very sharp eyesight
they have a clear view on the world below them and especially
on the prey they want to catch; fish, that is what they like
most.They can see the milky white spot in the water from a
distance of many miles. In high places they build their nests.
On a rock, on the top of a tree but always on a spot where they
have a good view on the world that surrounds them. And from
their castle they see what is happening around them and that
gives security.

The businessman should also have a clear view on what is
happening in the market. From very far he should recognize his
potential customers and "attack" them at the right moment. At
the same time he should be aware of the dangers that surround
him, anticipate, absorb the environment and be prepared to act
immediately.

2. Knowledge

Bald eagles are confined to their territories. With the seasons
some migrate but you find bald eagles only in a specific habitat
namely forests, mountains and near sea and rivers. You won't
find them in the desert. In their habitat they know what to do,
where they can find prey and which dangers surround them. By
instinct and by learning they have knowledge about the way they
have to conduct their lives and about how they have to behave
in this habitat. They will never go beyond the limitations of this
frame work. If they do, they die.

This holds a lesson for the businessman. He should know
everything about his business and when I say everything, I mean
everything. He should know all about the products he sells from
beginning to end, every detail should be an open book to him.
He can never be surprised with questions on which he has no
answers. He should know about marketing techniques, the
position and plans of competitors etc., etc. And if he doesn't
possess this knowledge by nature, he has to learn it.

3. Enough is enough

When Bald Eagles catch prey, they will catch only one fish at a
time. It is not possible for them to catch more. But they know
precisely how to catch this one fish. Their flying skills, their
strong talons and their eyesight are extremely well developed
and fit for the job. Almost every attempt to catch a prey is
successful.

This phenomenom also holds a wise lesson for the businessman.
He has to restrict himself to a number of products he can handle
and products that matches his skills and abilities. To stay in
the animal world: if you are a cow don't try to jump fences like
a horse. People will only laugh at you. It is better to sell one
product very well than ten without a satisfying result.

4. Courage

Bald eagles mate for life and they are absolutely loyal to each
other. From high altitudes the two birds tumble down in a
dangerous free fall. Mocking the laws of gravity they unite.
Only just above the tree tops they separate and fly wing by wing
to the nest. This spectacular show requires great courage. A
businessman also needs courage to be successful. He has to make
decisions about difficult and uncertain subjects. And he also
needs to know when to stop his free fall. Having courage to make
difficult decisions is not synonymous for being reckless. A
decision that leads to disaster is not a decision, but a wild
guess.

You see....the businessman can learn a great deal from this
majestic bird that embodies not only beauty, strength and
freedom but that possesses also the essential conditions and
abilities to survive.

The beginning businessman as well, who is maybe starting his
business in great uncertainty about the future, can learn from
the bald eagle:

Flying high starts with spreading your wings!

Sunday, October 26, 2008

my frnd startin a new venture

the name of the company is ms precision engineering. its a private limited company efficient in machining at cheaper rates

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

u can guess wht it is..but the fact is this is first of its kind....yes its a semiautomatic washing machine made by lakshmi groups...no1 knows that lakhmi groups had ventured into washing machines....this machine might be some 20 years old...20 years back thr whr only washine machines without dryers but this one has a seperate one for dryer and for washing...
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Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Space Elevators


Sept. 7, 2000 -- "Yes, ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard NASA's Millennium-Two Space Elevator. Your first stop will be the Lunar-level platform before we continue on to the New Frontier Space Colony development. The entire ride will take about 5 hours, so sit back and enjoy the trip. As we rise, be sure to watch outside the window as the curvature of the Earth becomes visible and the sky changes from deep blue to black, truly one of the most breathtaking views you will ever see!"

Does this sound like the Sci-Fi Channel or a chapter out of Arthur C. Clarke's, Fountains of Paradise? Well, it's not. It is a real possibility -- a "space elevator" -- that researchers are considering today as a far-out space transportation system for the next century.

Above: Artist Pat Rawling's concept of a space elevator viewed from the geostationary transfer station looking down along the length of the elevator toward Earth. [more information]

David Smitherman of NASA/Marshall's Advanced Projects Office has compiled plans for such an elevator that could turn science fiction into reality. His publication, Space Elevators: An Advanced Earth-Space Infrastructure for the New Millennium, is based on findings from a space infrastructure conference held at the Marshall Space Flight Center last year. The workshop included scientists and engineers from government and industry representing various fields such as structures, space tethers, materials, and Earth/space environments.

"This is no longer science fiction," said Smitherman. "We came out of the workshop saying, 'We may very well be able to do this.'"


A space elevator is essentially a long cable extending from our planet's surface into space with its center of mass at geostationary Earth orbit (GEO), 35,786 km in altitude. Electromagnetic vehicles traveling along the cable could serve as a mass transportation system for moving people, payloads, and power between Earth and space.

Current plans call for a base tower approximately 50 km tall -- the cable would be tethered to the top. To keep the cable structure from tumbling to Earth, it would be attached to a large counterbalance mass beyond geostationary orbit, perhaps an asteroid moved into place for that purpose.

"The system requires the center of mass be in geostationary orbit," said Smitherman. "The cable is basically in orbit around the Earth."

Four to six "elevator tracks" would extend up the sides of the tower and cable structure going to platforms at different levels. These tracks would allow electromagnetic vehicles to travel at speeds reaching thousands of kilometers-per-hour.

Conceptual designs place the tower construction at an equatorial site. The extreme height of the lower tower section makes it vulnerable to high winds. An equatorial location is ideal for a tower of such enormous height because the area is practically devoid of hurricanes and tornadoes and it aligns properly with geostationary orbits (which are directly overhead).

see caption

Above: Equatorial base sites are essential for space elevators because they align properly with geostationary orbits. In Arthur C. Clarke's novel, Fountains of Paradise, engineers built a space elevator on the mythical island of Taprobane, which was closely based on Sri Lanka, a real island near the southern tip of India. Clarke made one important change to the geography of Sri Lanka/Taprobane: he moved the island 800 km south so that it straddles the equator. At the moment, Sri Lanka lies between 6 and 10 degrees north.

According to Smitherman, construction is not feasible today but it could be toward the end of the 21st century. "First we'll develop the technology," said Smitherman. "In 50 years or so, we'll be there. Then, if the need is there, we'll be able to do this. That's the gist of the report."

Smitherman's paper credits Arthur C. Clarke with introducing the concept to a broader audience. In his 1978 novel, Fountains of Paradise, engineers construct a space elevator on top of a mountain peak in the mythical island of Taprobane (closely based on Sri Lanka, the country where Clarke now resides). The builders use advanced materials such as the carbon nanofibers now in laboratory study.

"His book brought the idea to the general public through the science fiction community," said Smitherman. But Clarke wasn't the first.

As early as 1895, a Russian scientist named Konstantin Tsiolkovsky suggested a fanciful "Celestial Castle" in geosynchronous Earth orbit attached to a tower on the ground, not unlike Paris's Eiffel tower. Another Russian, a Leningrad engineer by the name of Yuri Artsutanov, wrote some of the first modern ideas about space elevators in 1960. Published as a non-technical story in Pravda, his story never caught the attention of the West. Science magazine ran a short article in 1966 by John Isaacs, an American oceanographer, about a pair of whisker-thin wires extending to a geostationary satellite. The article ran basically unnoticed. The concept finally came to the attention of the space flight engineering community through a technical paper written in 1975 by Jerome Pearson of the Air Force Research Laboratory. This paper was the inspiration for Clarke's novel.

Left: In 1895 Konstantin Tsiolkovsky looked at the Eiffel Tower in Paris and imagined it attached to a "celestial castle" at the end of a spindle shaped cable, with the "castle" orbiting the earth in a geosynchronous orbit. The modern vision of a 50 km space tower -- the necessary anchor for any space elevator -- is far taller than the Eiffel Tower. [more information]

Pearson, who participated in the 1999 workshop, envisions the space elevator as a cost-cutting device for NASA. "One of the fundamental problems we face right now is that it's so unbelievably expensive to get things into orbit," said Pearson. "The space elevator may be the answer."

The workshop's findings determined the energy required to move a payload by space elevator from the ground to geostationary orbit could remain relatively low. Using today's energy costs, researchers figured a 12,000-kg Space Shuttle payload would cost no more than $17,700 for an elevator trip to GEO. A passenger with baggage at 150 kg might cost only $222! "Compare that to today's cost of around $10,000 per pound ($22,000 per kg)," said Smitherman. "Potentially, we're talking about just a few dollars per kg with the elevator."


During the workshop, issues pertinent to transforming the concept from science fiction to reality were discussed in detail. "What the workshop found was there are real materials in laboratories today that may be strong enough to construct this type of system," said Smitherman.

Smitherman listed five primary technology thrusts as critical to the development of the elevator. First was the development of high-strength materials for both the cables (tethers) and the tower.

see captionIn a 1998 report, NASA applications of molecular nanotechnology, researchers noted that "maximum stress [on a space elevator cable] is at geosynchronous altitude so the cable must be thickest there and taper exponentially as it approaches Earth. Any potential material may be characterized by the taper factor -- the ratio between the cable's radius at geosynchronous altitude and at the Earth's surface. For steel the taper factor is tens of thousands -- clearly impossible. For diamond, the taper factor is 21.9 including a safety factor. Diamond is, however, brittle. Carbon nanotubes have a strength in tension similar to diamond, but bundles of these nanometer-scale radius tubes shouldn't propagate cracks nearly as well as the diamond tetrahedral lattice."

Above: Carbon nanotube (CNT) is a new form of carbon, equivalent to a flat graphene sheet rolled into a tube. CNT exhibits extraordinary mechanical properties: the Young's modulus is over 1 Tera-Pascal and the estimated tensile strength is 200 Giga-Pascals. [more information]

Fiber materials such as graphite, alumina, and quartz have exhibited tensile strengths greater than 20 GPa (Giga-Pascals, a unit of measurement for tensile strength) during laboratory testing for cable tethers. The desired strength for the space elevator is about 62 GPa. Carbon nanotubes have exceeded all other materials and appear to have a theoretical strength far above the desired range for space elevator structures. "The development of carbon nanotubes shows real promise," said Smitherman. "They're lightweight materials that are 100 times stronger than steel."


The second technology thrust was the continuation of tether technology development to gain experience in the deployment and control of such long structures in space.

Third was the introduction of lightweight, composite structural materials to the general construction industry for the development of taller towers and buildings. "Buildings and towers can be constructed many kilometers high today using conventional construction materials and methods," said Smitherman. "There simply has not been a demonstrated need to do this that justifies the expense." Better materials may reduce the costs and make larger structures economical.

see captionFourth was the development of high-speed, electromagnetic propulsion for mass-transportation systems, launch systems, launch assist systems and high-velocity launch rails. These are, basically, higher speed versions of the trams now used at airports to carry passengers between terminals. They would float above the track, propelled by magnets, using no moving parts. This feature would allow the space elevator to attain high vehicle speeds without the wear and tear that wheeled vehicles would put on the structure.

Left: A computer model of a maglev -- or magnetically levitated -- launch vehicle. Maglev technologies are essential for future space elevators. [more information]

Fifth was the development of transportation, utility and facility infrastructures to support space construction and industrial development from Earth out to GEO. The high cost of constructing a space elevator can only be justified by high usage, by both passengers and payload, tourists and space dwellers.

During a speech he once gave, someone in the audience asked Arthur C. Clarke when the space elevator would become a reality.

"Clarke answered, 'Probably about 50 years after everybody quits laughing,'" related Pearson. "He's got a point. Once you stop dismissing something as unattainable, then you start working on its development. This is exciting!"