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Thursday, June 28, 2012

The terrifying see-through path stuck to a Chinese cliff-face 4,000ft above a rocky ravine


Don't look down! 

By STEPHANIE DARRALL, November 2011
It is certainly not a path for the faint-hearted.
On one side a sheer rock face, on the other a 4,000ft drop - and all to separate the brave traveller from a deadly plunge is a 3ft-wide, 2.5in thick walkway.
And if that is not enough to bring terror into the pit of your stomach, the path running alongside a Chinese mountainside is made out of glass, allowing a crystal-clear view of where one false step can take you.
So it was perhaps understandable that this woman tackled the walkway by sticking as close to the cliff as possible, feeling her way along with tentative steps.
Don't look down: A brave tourist walks along the glass path that was built of the side of a cliff 1430m above sea level on Tianmen Mountain in Zhangjiajie, China
Don't look down: A brave tourist walks along the glass path that was built of the side of a cliff 4,700ft above sea level on Tianmen Mountain in Zhangjiajie, China
A glass path suspended on a cliff face is seen on Tianmen Mountain on November 9, 2011
Dazzling: A glass path suspended on a cliff face has been built on the side of the Tianmen Mountain in China
The skywalk is situated 4,700ft above sea level on the side of the Tianmen Mountain in Zhangjiajie, China.  
The 200ft long bridge joins the west cliff at the Yunmeng Fairy Summit, the summit of Tianmen Mountain and Zhang Jiajie.
And it would appear to be too scary for the cleaners - tourists are asked to put on shoe covers before passing to help keep the path clean.



 The pathway, built earlier in the summer echoes the glass-bottomed walkway at the Grand Canyon in the U.S.
The 70ft bridge is 4,000ft above the natural wonder and allows tourists to look through 2.5in of crystal-clear glass to the Canyon floor below.
The Tianmen mountain, literally translated as Heavenly Gate Mountain is so called because of a huge natural cave that occurs halfway up to the summit.
Tourists walk along the glass path that was built of the side of a cliff on Tianmen Mountain on November 9, 2011
A glass path suspended on a cliff face is seen on Tianmen Mountain on November 9, 2011 in Zhangjiajie, China.
Stunning: The skywalk offers breathtaking views across the Hunan Province for those brave enough to attempt to cross the bridge
Situated in the Hunan Province, Its highest peak is around 5,000ft above sea level and it is home to a wealth of rare species of plants 
A four-mile-long cable car was constructed in the park, which is said to be the longest of the same type in the world.
And no matter how terrifying the glass walkway may be - it can only be an improvement from another sky high mountain walkway located in the same province.
The Shifou Mountain, located 82 miles away, offers sightseers a 3ft-wide road made of wooden planks thousands of feet high.
When finished the wooden 'road' - which is the width of a dinner table - will stretch for 1.8miles making it China's longest sightseeing path.
Not so high spec: Workers built a 3ft-wide plank road on the side of Shifou Mountain, in Hunan Province, China earlier this year
Not so high spec: Workers built a 3ft-wide plank road on the side of Shifou Mountain, in Hunan Province, China earlier this year

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Wednesday, June 20, 2012

32 new hairstyles for 2012


Who says you have to stop playing with your hair? Here are 32 new styles—for every length and texture—to try in 2012.

SMOOTH WAVES

Being a bombshell is easier than you’d think. For these gorgeous Marilyn waves, just prep your hair with mousse such as Paul Mitchell Flexible Style Sculpting Foam, then blow-dry it upside down for volume. Create a side part, then set the hair in pin curls. When your hair is cool, gently brush it out to create a swooping wave near the crown and soft curls at the ends.

BAD-GIRL BLOWOUT

To give your blowout an edge, try adding volume. Start by combing a volumizing mousse such as Garnier Fructis Style XXL Volume Thickening Mousse through wet hair, then blow-dry it upside down, using your fingers to rake through the strands. Flip your head upright while the hair is still warm, part it in the middle, and wrap two-inch sections around medium-size Velcro rollers. After ten minutes, take out the rollers and spray dry shampoo (we swear by Klorane Gentle Dry Shampoo with Oat Milk) from the ears down for a rough finish.
BAD-GIRL BLOWOUT
To give your blowout an edge, try adding volume. Start by combing a volumizing mousse such as Garnier Fructis Style XXL Volume Thickening Mousse through wet hair, then blow-dry it upside down, using your fingers to rake through the strands. Flip your head upright while the hair is still warm, part it in the middle, and wrap two-inch sections around medium-size Velcro rollers. After ten minutes, take out the rollers and spray dry shampoo (we swear by Klorane Gentle Dry Shampoo with Oat Milk) from the ears down for a rough finish.
PULLED TOGETHER
Three-dollar Goody Jenna Barrettes were all over the fall runways, including Prada’s (shown here). While we don’t recommend piling on over 100, adding just one gives the hair a smooth, pulled-together appearance. Pull half of your hair back and secure with a clip, or add one above your ponytail.
LACY CHIGNON
First, comb a thickening lotion such as Bumble and Bumble Really Thickening Serum through damp hair from mid-shaft to ends and blow it dry with a round brush. Gather the hair into a side ponytail, back-comb it to add volume, and use pins to secure it in a bun. Then, place a long piece of lace at the hairline and tie it around the elastic. Fold one end of the material over the bun and pin it underneath with bobby pins, cutting off any excess lace. Don’t stress about making it perfect—”the less time you spend, the better,” says hairstylist Ken O’Rourke.
EASY WAVES
Spritz clean, dry hair with leave-in conditioning spray (we like Aveeno Nourish + Condition Leave-In Treatment), then wrap random sections of the hair around a half-inch curling iron, starting two inches from the roots and leaving a few inches of hair untouched at the ends. Loosen waves with your fingers, then smooth a curl-enhancing cream such as Bumble and Bumble Curl Conscious Calming Creme over the hair for added shine.

FRENCH TWIST

To create this elegant style, hairstylist Garren set the top layer of hair in pin curls, then brushed them out for voluminous, soft waves. After teasing the hair at the crown, he gathered it at the nape, pulled one side taut, and rolled the other side over. Voilà.

BOUNCY BLOWOUT

Give your blowout a makeover—and some movement. First, apply a setting lotion such as Lea Journo La Forme Styling Lotion to damp hair and blow-dry upside down to build volume. Once your hair is 80 percent dry, separate it into four parts and roll each section into extra-large Velcro rollers. Take out one roller at a time and dry that section using a round boar-bristle brush and the nozzle attached to your dryer. Finish drying each section by smoothing it with the dryer and brush, then winding the brush up to your scalp like a roller and leaving it there until your hair cools.
SLEEK TWIST
Perfect for those days you wake up late, this wet style takes three minutes. First, mist damp hair with leave-in conditioner such as Nexxus Botanluxe Nourishing Botanical Leave-In Conditioner, then brush it into a high ponytail and secure with an elastic. Twirl the tail until it becomes a tight coil, pin into place, and tuck the ends underneath. Finish up by rubbing a drop of serum such as Redken Shine Brilliance Glass 01 Smoothing Serum over the top for shine.
HALF-LOOPED
To get the ethereal style seen at 3.1 Philip Lim fall 2011, hairstylist Odile Gilbert gathered the top half of the hair into a ponytail, pulling it halfway through the elastic in a loop. She used a three-pronged iron to create rippling waves on the remaining half of the hair. (A good one to try: Hot Tools Gold 3 Barrel Waver Spring Iron.)
HALF-FULL
For this soft, sexy look, like the one at Nina Ricci fall 2011, set the hair in large pin curls, then remove after ten minutes and tease the roots at the crown for volume. Take a section above each ear, crisscross them at the back of your head, and fasten with pins. “It’s very French—very Bardot,” says hairstylist Guido, who created the look, shown here.
HALF-UP SIDE PONY
Smooth the upper half of the hair back as if you were going to tie it in a basic ponytail, but instead of securing it at the back of the head, pull it to the side. “In the middle, it’s just too normal,” says hairstylist Orlando Pita, who created the look for Giambattista Valli fall 2011 show, shown here.
LOW CHIGNON
This updo is neat without looking too obsessive. For the soft style, Garren set the hair in medium-size hot rollers. Once the rollers had cooled, he brushed the curls out, teased the hair at the crown, then swept everything to the side to create the dip in the front and used pins to secure the ends in a tight chignon at the nape.
BASKET WEAVE
Here’s a fun twist on the old scarf-tied-in-a-ponytail trick (and a great pop of color). First, pull your hair into a low ponytail and attach a bright scarf to the elastic. Then, braid the scarf into two sections of hair and loop it into a bun.

ACCESSORIZED PONYTAIL

Just as jewelry dresses up jeans and a T-shirt, hair accessories—like this headband at the fall 2011 Nina Ricci show—kick a basic ponytail up a notch. Start by lightly teasing the roots at the crown of your head, then smooth hair back and secure with an elastic at the nape of your neck. Slip on the band, keeping it no more than one inch back from your hairline.

FULL PONYTAIL

The secret to this textured style is shine. After applying mousse (try Tresemmé 24 Hour Body Foaming Mousse) to damp hair from roots to ends, blow-dry your hair. Create a center part and fasten the hair into a ponytail at the nape. Wrap one-inch sections around a quarter-inch curling iron and tease the length of the ponytail with a paddle brush. Use a silicone-free shine spray (we love Aussie Spray Gloss) to smooth your hair from your hairline back to the elastic. Add a jeweled accessory behind the ear for drama.

TEASED PONYTAIL

Give your ponytail a boost—with volume. After spritzing salt spray (we recommend Biosilk Beach Texture) at the crown for texture, mist the rest of the hair with a volumizing spray such as Sebastian Professional Volupt Spray and rough-dry it with a blow-dryer. Then, create a deep side part with the first three inches of hair from the hairline and section that part off. Set the rest of the hair at the crown in Velcro rollers for ten minutes. When you remove the curlers, tease the hair and spray all over with a dry shampoo like Sachajuan Volume Powder. Brush the front section off the ears and secure with an elastic at the nape of the neck. Pull the rest of the hair back and tie it all together into one low ponytail.
TOUGH HAIR
You (thankfully) don’t have to skip the shower for this grungy, wet look, seen at the spring 2011 Prada show. After curling dry hair from the ears down, rake mousse (we love L’Oréal Professionel Texture Expert Lift Extrême Mousse) from roots to tips to add “an edge,” says Guido. Skip hair spray, which tends to make wet-looking hair stiff and crispy.

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Sunday, June 10, 2012

BMW working on a 7-speed manual, trademarks M7 name



BMW working on a 7-speed manual, trademarks M7 name
Two important developments have taken place at BMW this week, including one that could finally mark the entry of a high-performance luxury model from its Motorsport division.
Before we move on to that, it seems like BMW has invited itself to a party that Porsche started. A patent filing was leaked showing BMW working on a seven-speed manual transmission. The first take is like a regular mechanism that uses a clutch pedal while the second variant reveals a shift-by-wire mechanism that shifts gears using an electromechanical actuator.
An electromagnetic fluid inside a shifting module is relied upon to prevent drivers from damaging the gearbox by engaging the wrong gear. The viscosity of the fluid changes to stop the lever from engaging a shift.
Meanwhile at the product development central, talks have reopened of a performance variant using the 7 Series. Coincidentally, along with a handful of other new names, BMW has trademarked the M7 name without revealing intentions. It is usual for a company to protect unused but related names from being hijacked by rival car makers, but this move could have something more than what meets the eye.
The M7 is tentatively a direct competitor to the Mercedes S63 AMG and the Audi S8.
Over the past few days media reports have surfaced claiming that the CEO's of important markets for BMW are pushing the headquarters for approving the performance variant in the foreseeable future and that the sentiment of the board members are changing.
[Source - E90Post.com]

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How Will You Measure Your Life?


Editor’s Note: When the members of the class of 2010 entered business school, the economy was strong and their post-graduation ambitions could be limitless. Just a few weeks later, the economy went into a tailspin. They’ve spent the past two years recalibrating their worldview and their definition of success.
The students seem highly aware of how the world has changed (as the sampling of views in this article shows). In the spring, Harvard Business School’s graduating class asked HBS professor Clay Christensen to address them—but not on how to apply his principles and thinking to their post-HBS careers. The students wanted to know how to apply them to their personal lives. He shared with them a set of guidelines that have helped him find meaning in his own life. Though Christensen’s thinking comes from his deep religious faith, we believe that these are strategies anyone can use. And so we asked him to share them with the readers of HBR. To learn more about Christensen’s work, visit his HBR Author Page.
Before I published The Innovator’s Dilemma, I got a call from Andrew Grove, then the chairman of Intel. He had read one of my early papers about disruptive technology, and he asked if I could talk to his direct reports and explain my research and what it implied for Intel. Excited, I flew to Silicon Valley and showed up at the appointed time, only to have Grove say, “Look, stuff has happened. We have only 10 minutes for you. Tell us what your model of disruption means for Intel.” I said that I couldn’t—that I needed a full 30 minutes to explain the model, because only with it as context would any comments about Intel make sense. Ten minutes into my explanation, Grove interrupted: “Look, I’ve got your model. Just tell us what it means for Intel.”
I insisted that I needed 10 more minutes to describe how the process of disruption had worked its way through a very different industry, steel, so that he and his team could understand how disruption worked. I told the story of how Nucor and other steel minimills had begun by attacking the lowest end of the market—steel reinforcing bars, or rebar—and later moved up toward the high end, undercutting the traditional steel mills.
When I finished the minimill story, Grove said, “OK, I get it. What it means for Intel is...,” and then went on to articulate what would become the company’s strategy for going to the bottom of the market to launch the Celeron processor.
I’ve thought about that a million times since. If I had been suckered into telling Andy Grove what he should think about the microprocessor business, I’d have been killed. But instead of telling him what to think, I taught him how to think—and then he reached what I felt was the correct decision on his own.
That experience had a profound influence on me. When people ask what I think they should do, I rarely answer their question directly. Instead, I run the question aloud through one of my models. I’ll describe how the process in the model worked its way through an industry quite different from their own. And then, more often than not, they’ll say, “OK, I get it.” And they’ll answer their own question more insightfully than I could have.
My class at HBS is structured to help my students understand what good management theory is and how it is built. To that backbone I attach different models or theories that help students think about the various dimensions of a general manager’s job in stimulating innovation and growth. In each session we look at one company through the lenses of those theories—using them to explain how the company got into its situation and to examine what managerial actions will yield the needed results.
On the last day of class, I ask my students to turn those theoretical lenses on themselves, to find cogent answers to three questions: First, how can I be sure that I’ll be happy in my career? Second, how can I be sure that my relationships with my spouse and my family become an enduring source of happiness? Third, how can I be sure I’ll stay out of jail? Though the last question sounds lighthearted, it’s not. Two of the 32 people in my Rhodes scholar class spent time in jail. Jeff Skilling of Enron fame was a classmate of mine at HBS. These were good guys—but something in their lives sent them off in the wrong direction.
As the students discuss the answers to these questions, I open my own life to them as a case study of sorts, to illustrate how they can use the theories from our course to guide their life decisions.
One of the theories that gives great insight on the first question—how to be sure we find happiness in our careers—is from Frederick Herzberg, who asserts that the powerful motivator in our lives isn’t money; it’s the opportunity to learn, grow in responsibilities, contribute to others, and be recognized for achievements. I tell the students about a vision of sorts I had while I was running the company I founded before becoming an academic. In my mind’s eye I saw one of my managers leave for work one morning with a relatively strong level of self-esteem. Then I pictured her driving home to her family 10 hours later, feeling unappreciated, frustrated, underutilized, and demeaned. I imagined how profoundly her lowered self-esteem affected the way she interacted with her children. The vision in my mind then fast-forwarded to another day, when she drove home with greater self-esteem—feeling that she had learned a lot, been recognized for achieving valuable things, and played a significant role in the success of some important initiatives. I then imagined how positively that affected her as a spouse and a parent. My conclusion: Management is the most noble of professions if it’s practiced well. No other occupation offers as many ways to help others learn and grow, take responsibility and be recognized for achievement, and contribute to the success of a team. More and more MBA students come to school thinking that a career in business means buying, selling, and investing in companies. That’s unfortunate. Doing deals doesn’t yield the deep rewards that come from building up people.

I want students to leave my classroom knowing that.

Create a Strategy for Your Life
A theory that is helpful in answering the second question—How can I ensure that my relationship with my family proves to be an enduring source of happiness?—concerns how strategy is defined and implemented. Its primary insight is that a company’s strategy is determined by the types of initiatives that management invests in. If a company’s resource allocation process is not managed masterfully, what emerges from it can be very different from what management intended. Because companies’ decision-making systems are designed to steer investments to initiatives that offer the most tangible and immediate returns, companies shortchange investments in initiatives that are crucial to their long-term strategies.
Over the years I’ve watched the fates of my HBS classmates from 1979 unfold; I’ve seen more and more of them come to reunions unhappy, divorced, and alienated from their children. I can guarantee you that not a single one of them graduated with the deliberate strategy of getting divorced and raising children who would become estranged from them. And yet a shocking number of them implemented that strategy. The reason? They didn’t keep the purpose of their lives front and center as they decided how to spend their time, talents, and energy.
It’s quite startling that a significant fraction of the 900 students that HBS draws each year from the world’s best have given little thought to the purpose of their lives. I tell the students that HBS might be one of their last chances to reflect deeply on that question. If they think that they’ll have more time and energy to reflect later, they’re nuts, because life only gets more demanding: You take on a mortgage; you’re working 70 hours a week; you have a spouse and children.
For me, having a clear purpose in my life has been essential. But it was something I had to think long and hard about before I understood it. When I was a Rhodes scholar, I was in a very demanding academic program, trying to cram an extra year’s worth of work into my time at Oxford. I decided to spend an hour every night reading, thinking, and praying about why God put me on this earth. That was a very challenging commitment to keep, because every hour I spent doing that, I wasn’t studying applied econometrics. I was conflicted about whether I could really afford to take that time away from my studies, but I stuck with it—and ultimately figured out the purpose of my life.
Had I instead spent that hour each day learning the latest techniques for mastering the problems of autocorrelation in regression analysis, I would have badly misspent my life. I apply the tools of econometrics a few times a year, but I apply my knowledge of the purpose of my life every day. It’s the single most useful thing I’ve ever learned. I promise my students that if they take the time to figure out their life purpose, they’ll look back on it as the most important thing they discovered at HBS. If they don’t figure it out, they will just sail off without a rudder and get buffeted in the very rough seas of life. Clarity about their purpose will trump knowledge of activity-based costing, balanced scorecards, core competence, disruptive innovation, the four Ps, and the five forces.

My purpose grew out of my religious faith, but faith isn’t the only thing that gives people direction. For example, one of my former students decided that his purpose was to bring honesty and economic prosperity to his country and to raise children who were as capably committed to this cause, and to each other, as he was. His purpose is focused on family and others—as mine is.
The choice and successful pursuit of a profession is but one tool for achieving your purpose. But without a purpose, life can become hollow.

Allocate Your Resources
Your decisions about allocating your personal time, energy, and talent ultimately shape your life’s strategy.
I have a bunch of “businesses” that compete for these resources: I’m trying to have a rewarding relationship with my wife, raise great kids, contribute to my community, succeed in my career, contribute to my church, and so on. And I have exactly the same problem that a corporation does. I have a limited amount of time and energy and talent. How much do I devote to each of these pursuits?
Allocation choices can make your life turn out to be very different from what you intended. Sometimes that’s good: Opportunities that you never planned for emerge. But if you misinvest your resources, the outcome can be bad. As I think about my former classmates who inadvertently invested for lives of hollow unhappiness, I can’t help believing that their troubles relate right back to a short-term perspective.
When people who have a high need for achievement—and that includes all Harvard Business School graduates—have an extra half hour of time or an extra ounce of energy, they’ll unconsciously allocate it to activities that yield the most tangible accomplishments. And our careers provide the most concrete evidence that we’re moving forward. You ship a product, finish a design, complete a presentation, close a sale, teach a class, publish a paper, get paid, get promoted. In contrast, investing time and energy in your relationship with your spouse and children typically doesn’t offer that same immediate sense of achievement. Kids misbehave every day. It’s really not until 20 years down the road that you can put your hands on your hips and say, “I raised a good son or a good daughter.” You can neglect your relationship with your spouse, and on a day-to-day basis, it doesn’t seem as if things are deteriorating. People who are driven to excel have this unconscious propensity to underinvest in their families and overinvest in their careers—even though intimate and loving relationships with their families are the most powerful and enduring source of happiness.
If you study the root causes of business disasters, over and over you’ll find this predisposition toward endeavors that offer immediate gratification. If you look at personal lives through that lens, you’ll see the same stunning and sobering pattern: people allocating fewer and fewer resources to the things they would have once said mattered most.
Create a Culture
There’s an important model in our class called the Tools of Cooperation, which basically says that being a visionary manager isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. It’s one thing to see into the foggy future with acuity and chart the course corrections that the company must make. But it’s quite another to persuade employees who might not see the changes ahead to line up and work cooperatively to take the company in that new direction. Knowing what tools to wield to elicit the needed cooperation is a critical managerial skill.
The theory arrays these tools along two dimensions—the extent to which members of the organization agree on what they want from their participation in the enterprise, and the extent to which they agree on what actions will produce the desired results. When there is little agreement on both axes, you have to use “power tools”—coercion, threats, punishment, and so on—to secure cooperation. Many companies start in this quadrant, which is why the founding executive team must play such an assertive role in defining what must be done and how. If employees’ ways of working together to address those tasks succeed over and over, consensus begins to form. MIT’s Edgar Schein has described this process as the mechanism by which a culture is built. Ultimately, people don’t even think about whether their way of doing things yields success. They embrace priorities and follow procedures by instinct and assumption rather than by explicit decision—which means that they’ve created a culture. Culture, in compelling but unspoken ways, dictates the proven, acceptable methods by which members of the group address recurrent problems. And culture defines the priority given to different types of problems. It can be a powerful management tool.
In using this model to address the question, How can I be sure that my family becomes an enduring source of happiness?, my students quickly see that the simplest tools that parents can wield to elicit cooperation from children are power tools. But there comes a point during the teen years when power tools no longer work. At that point parents start wishing that they had begun working with their children at a very young age to build a culture at home in which children instinctively behave respectfully toward one another, obey their parents, and choose the right thing to do. Families have cultures, just as companies do. Those cultures can be built consciously or evolve inadvertently.


If you want your kids to have strong self-esteem and confidence that they can solve hard problems, those qualities won’t magically materialize in high school. You have to design them into your family’s culture—and you have to think about this very early on. Like employees, children build self-esteem by doing things that are hard and learning what works.

Avoid the “Marginal Costs” Mistake
We’re taught in finance and economics that in evaluating alternative investments, we should ignore sunk and fixed costs, and instead base decisions on the marginal costs and marginal revenues that each alternative entails. We learn in our course that this doctrine biases companies to leverage what they have put in place to succeed in the past, instead of guiding them to create the capabilities they’ll need in the future. If we knew the future would be exactly the same as the past, that approach would be fine. But if the future’s different—and it almost always is—then it’s the wrong thing to do.
This theory addresses the third question I discuss with my students—how to live a life of integrity (stay out of jail). Unconsciously, we often employ the marginal cost doctrine in our personal lives when we choose between right and wrong. A voice in our head says, “Look, I know that as a general rule, most people shouldn’t do this. But in this particular extenuating circumstance, just this once, it’s OK.” The marginal cost of doing something wrong “just this once” always seems alluringly low. It suckers you in, and you don’t ever look at where that path ultimately is headed and at the full costs that the choice entails. Justification for infidelity and dishonesty in all their manifestations lies in the marginal cost economics of “just this once.”
I’d like to share a story about how I came to understand the potential damage of “just this once” in my own life. I played on the Oxford University varsity basketball team. We worked our tails off and finished the season undefeated. The guys on the team were the best friends I’ve ever had in my life. We got to the British equivalent of the NCAA tournament—and made it to the final four. It turned out the championship game was scheduled to be played on a Sunday. I had made a personal commitment to God at age 16 that I would never play ball on Sunday. So I went to the coach and explained my problem. He was incredulous. My teammates were, too, because I was the starting center. Every one of the guys on the team came to me and said, “You’ve got to play. Can’t you break the rule just this one time?”
I’m a deeply religious man, so I went away and prayed about what I should do. I got a very clear feeling that I shouldn’t break my commitment—so I didn’t play in the championship game.
In many ways that was a small decision—involving one of several thousand Sundays in my life. In theory, surely I could have crossed over the line just that one time and then not done it again. But looking back on it, resisting the temptation whose logic was “In this extenuating circumstance, just this once, it’s OK” has proven to be one of the most important decisions of my life. Why? My life has been one unending stream of extenuating circumstances. Had I crossed the line that one time, I would have done it over and over in the years that followed.
The lesson I learned from this is that it’s easier to hold to your principles 100% of the time than it is to hold to them 98% of the time. If you give in to “just this once,” based on a marginal cost analysis, as some of my former classmates have done, you’ll regret where you end up. You’ve got to define for yourself what you stand for and draw the line in a safe place.
Remember the Importance of Humility
I got this insight when I was asked to teach a class on humility at Harvard College. I asked all the students to describe the most humble person they knew. One characteristic of these humble people stood out: They had a high level of self-esteem. They knew who they were, and they felt good about who they were. We also decided that humility was defined not by self-deprecating behavior or attitudes but by the esteem with which you regard others. Good behavior flows naturally from that kind of humility. For example, you would never steal from someone, because you respect that person too much. You’d never lie to someone, either.
It’s crucial to take a sense of humility into the world. By the time you make it to a top graduate school, almost all your learning has come from people who are smarter and more experienced than you: parents, teachers, bosses. But once you’ve finished at Harvard Business School or any other top academic institution, the vast majority of people you’ll interact with on a day-to-day basis may not be smarter than you. And if your attitude is that only smarter people have something to teach you, your learning opportunities will be very limited. But if you have a humble eagerness to learn something from everybody, your learning opportunities will be unlimited. Generally, you can be humble only if you feel really good about yourself—and you want to help those around you feel really good about themselves, too. When we see people acting in an abusive, arrogant, or demeaning manner toward others, their behavior almost always is a symptom of their lack of self-esteem. They need to put someone else down to feel good about themselves.

Choose the Right Yardstick
This past year I was diagnosed with cancer and faced the possibility that my life would end sooner than I’d planned. Thankfully, it now looks as if I’ll be spared. But the experience has given me important insight into my life.
I have a pretty clear idea of how my ideas have generated enormous revenue for companies that have used my research; I know I’ve had a substantial impact. But as I’ve confronted this disease, it’s been interesting to see how unimportant that impact is to me now. I’ve concluded that the metric by which God will assess my life isn’t dollars but the individual people whose lives I’ve touched.
I think that’s the way it will work for us all. Don’t worry about the level of individual prominence you have achieved; worry about the individuals you have helped become better people. This is my final recommendation: Think about the metric by which your life will be judged, and make a resolution to live every day so that in the end, your life will be judged a success.
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Clayton M. Christensen (cchristensen@hbs.edu) is the Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. He is the author of the forthcoming book, How Will You Measure Your Life?(May 15, 2012), which is based on this article.

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Saturday, June 9, 2012

A LinkedIn leak lesson: top 30 dumb passwords people still use


Internet users continue to make things very easy for hackers.  A close inspection of a portion of the 6.5 million leaked LinkedIn passwords proves people keep making foolish password choices.  In fact, the most commonly used phrase in the password set appears to be “link,” according to Boston-based security firm Rapid7, which created a top 30 list for msnbc.com. The list was generated by studying a sample of 160,000 passwords from the 6.5 million that have been released on the Internet.

What hacker would ever guess that your LinkedIn password had the work “link” in it? Answer: All of them.
Second on the list of most common password phrases: “1234.”  And because LinkedIn required seven-letter passwords, “12345” wasn’t far behind, either, ranking sixth on the list (123456 was 15th.) Rounding out the top 10 were “work,” “god,” “job,” “angel,” “the,” “ilove,” and “sex.”

“We are seeing a trend of Internet users trying to use simplistic passphrases on Internet sites,” said Marcus Carey, a security researcher at Rapid7. “They are (being hacked) because of the simple fact that many are using words that have been long considered bad passwords. Password-cracking algorithms include these bad passwords as a part of their recipe.”

The top 30 list generated by Rapid7 contains partial passwords used by consumers.  In other words, no one used the simple word “link” as a password – it was part of a password, such as “BobLink” or “LinkPass.”  That might seem to mitigate the danger, but it doesn’t offer much protection. Hackers spend hours guessing users’ passwords, using tools that brute force their way through millions of combinations.  If a hacker knows someone used a seven-letter password, and part of that password is “link,” the bad guy only has to crack what is essentially a three-letter password. That’s exponentially easier.  (How much easier? Assuming 94 potential password characters, based on the common keyboard layout, a three-digit password offers 830,000 possibilities; a seven-digit password offers 65 billion possibilities.)

“What people need to understand is that even with trusted sites such as LinkedIn there is still a possibility for massive compromise,” Carey said. “The bigger the site, the more personal information is leaked, and the big boys on the block are the ones who are targeted the most.”
This experiment has been done before. In fact, a company named SplashData compiles a “worst passwords” list annually from stolen passwords. You’ll see a lot of overlap between that list and this LinkedIn list. That means people aren’t learning. To that end, if you use any of the phrases on the list below to build your password, you should know that attaching “!!!” to the end doesn’t make you safe.

It's important to note that even the strongest of passwords provided little defense against the LinkedIn hack (and the subsequently announced eHarmony hack).  Bad guys stole password files directly from the companies involved, so even "%R7^Tgh1" ( wasn't safe from their prying eyes. This doesn't lessen the lesson, however.  Consumers still should do all they can to protect themselves, and they don't.
Words that are in the dictionary shouldn't be in your password, but unusual characters should be.  Names on your Facebook page -- such as your dog's name or high school mascot -- shouldn't be in your password, either. That of course makes remembering your password a challenge, but here's a trick that security professionals recommend: think of a sentence that you can remember, and take the first letter of every word in the sentence as your password. For example: My daughter Julie was born on November 1 would yield a password of "MdJwboN1." Throw in an exclamation point at the end to show your love for your daughter, and you have a pretty strong, unique password.  For more tips, vist this page at US-CERT.

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Saturday, June 2, 2012

Harappa & Mohenjo-daro


Based on research by Sonia Saleem


Harappa or “Hari-Yupuya” as mentioned in the “Rig Veda” marked the height of urban development of the Indus valley civilization at 2600 B.C.E till 1900 B.C.E. for 700 years. Harappa is located in the present day province of Punjab, near the city of Sahiwal, and in its full glory was the perfect proto-type of a fully developed city of the Indus valley civilization. It was the perfect reflection of the kind of organized thought which the Rig Veda emphasized. [Wheeler, Kenoyer].


Harappa has the same humble beginnings as any other large city. It began as a village settlement, gradually growing over the centuries to accommodate renowned craft industries, world accessible markets, and clean residential areas and cemeteries. Harappa is 128,800 hinterland, and 150 hectares in area. Harappa city was so developed and central to the Indus Empire that the name Harappa became synonymous with the dominant culture at the time, followed by all the other cities in the Indus region, right down to Kutch on the coast in present day India. [Rehman, Kenoyer]. Accordingly, the ruins of Harappa are three miles in circumference. The ruins of this city are split up into mounds, labeled from mound A, to G by archeologists, making points easily identifiable. The mounds were common to all Indus cities, and the higher the mound, the more central and important that area was in the city. For example the citadel mound was almost always the highest mound. This archetype Indus city was built on the east-west, north –south axis, and was surrounded by four city walls with a large entrance gate on the western wall. The gate was 2.8 meters wide, and 3 to 4 meters high, [Kenoyer], fixed with rooms or look out posts at the top. [Kenoyer]. Inside the gateway there was a grand space for a market making it easier for goods to be transported in and checked, taxed and sold. The Ox and cart was the method used to transport these goods, and the entrance was just big enough to allow one cart in and out at a time. Once inside the city gate, and past the market space, a network of roads led in to the centre of the city. The north road led to all the shell and agate workshops, the west road lead to the copper-craft workshops. Evidence of a caravanserai is found outside, and south of the main city gate. It contained houses, drains, baths, a wel,l and stables for horses. [Kenoyer 55].


It was a complete and accommodating stop for traveling traders and merchants, as Harappa was an integral part of an ancient trade route. Traders in fact helped the infra-structure flourish in the region. Kenoyer mentions that a modern road used at present outside of the city gates, near the old site of the caravanserai was in all likelihood laid out 4500 years ago by Harappan traders. This caravanserai was used for post transfers along the route as well, serving Lahore and Multan. This caravanserai was kept in use for thousands of years later by traveling traders, again verifying the fact that the city of Harappa was situated in a strategic position for trade routes.


A second gate was located 200 meters east of the first one. This gate led into a suburb of the city which also produced ornaments, crafts and other artifacts for trade. This gate also had a caravanserai approximately 50 meters south outside, to accommodate the traders who came to this part of the city. [Kenoyer 55].


There is no evidence of a palace or a huge residency for a monarch or ruler in the centre of the city. However there is a large building amongst many discernible houses in the northern suburb of the city. But it is thought that it was a storehouse, as there are many circular work-platforms upon which craft work, and ceramics were made. [Kenoyer 55]. According to the map of Harrapa, made by Sir Mortimer Wheeler, besides the carvanserai’s, the granaries, cemeteries, and the workmen’s quarters were outside the city walls. From the map it also seems like the western wall contained most of the gates accessible to the city, as well as the main entrance. The expansion of Harappa was gradual, and migrants from other cities, and nations were not unusual. However one culture was dominant in Harappa, and in fact Harappa culture dominated the rest of the cities too. This ensured peace and harmony throughout the Indus region. Even before Harappa became the epicenter of culture, peace and harmony dominated the Indus region. Non-violence, even in the form of self-defense, was a part of Indus religion, thus all invasions or migrations were not resisted, nor were there any clashes amongst tribes. The gates of the city were not constructed to counter any kind of military attack, nor were the walls made for self-defense. Walls surrounding mounds with in the city just demarcated different areas. [Kenoyer 56]. An imminent threat of war was not even an idea or a thought in the Indus valley. A uniform culture propagated peace. The city catered specifically to the smooth running of trade, and business, another integral of Indus religion.


Mohenjo-daro
Mohenjo-daro, or “Mound of the Dead” is thought to be similarly built to Harappa as all Indus cities possessed a common design reflecting Vedic, organized thought. It can also be prided in being the first city in the world to have a full-fledged draining system. A vast draining system for a whole city was invented in the land of the Indus.


The city of Mohenjo-daro is 169,260 sq km hinterland, and is 250 hectares. [Kenoyer]. This also suggests that Mohenjo-daro is older than Harappa. However, the remains of Mohenjo-daro are not all complete as they are at the excavated site of Harappa. There are no physical remains of walls and gateways, but the size of the foundations of these walls surrounding the city suggest that these walls were probably grander than those of Harappa. Mohenjo-daro was frequented by floods, which is the main reason why it did not flourish in the same way that Harappa did, and was probably the cause of its ultimate destruction. The eastern citadel at the time was situated very close to the Indus River. Flooding in this region is still a concern and a problem, even though the nearest branch of the river has shifted 3 miles away to the east. [Wheeler].


A Buddhist stupa and monastery were found on top of the western citadel, and were built there several centuries after the demise of the Indus civilization, in 200 B.C.E. Between the complete demise of the Indus civilization, and the spread of Buddhism, no other city as big as Mohenjo-daro existed in this region. Mohenjo-daro was thus built as a grid, organized on a north-south, east-west axis. It was built as a slope, obviously to counter the floods. The western citadel was the highest mound, which gradually ran down east, making the eastern citadel the lowest mound. Similar to Harappa, the highest mound marked the more important, central part of the city, where dignitaries and rulers lived, and probably was the hub for trade in this part of the Indus Empire.


Harappa and Mohenjo-daro were the capital cites of the Indus civilization, however the Indus River was not the only water-way which was included in this civilization. The Ghaggar-Hakra River was the other river feeding the Indus valley civilization, but dried up over the centuries to become the Cholistan desert. It ran through the areas of present day Punjab and Sindh, parallel and east of the Indus. The capital cities, and the cities of Ganweriwala, Rakhigarhi, were situated on different points of the banks of the Indus, fundamentally to be a part of the trade routes. The latter two covered only 80 hectares each in area, but were just as important for trade. Dholavira covered 100 hectares in area, and was the most furthest away from the centers, but was situated on the Rann of Kutch, which is now present day Indian Gujarat. Thus it served as a good base to import and export goods beyond the Arabian Sea, and fish, and sea shells found to be supplied and channeled around the Indus civilization. These smaller cities were built much in the same organized, grid like manner as the capitals. Indus architecture can be defined as logical, neat, functional, simple, and strives for order and organization. [Kenoyer, Wheeler]. Religion and trade routes were evidently the crux and core of the existence of these cities.


“Life is one long process of getting tired.” [Samuel Butler.] A territorial shift of Indus culture to the Ganges region; .


All things, great or small must come to an end. A great, thriving, and peaceful civilization such as the Indus civilization surprisingly did come to an end. It is thought that environmental changes, and tectonic plate shifts under the earth helped in its demise. Natural causes suggest an evolution, a slow and steady gradual change from the center of trade commerce shifting east to other major water systems in the sub-continent. The entire civilization shifted east, and south.


According to Sir Mortimer Wheeler, the exact cause is ambiguous. He says “Over-ambitious wars, barbarian invasions, dynastic or capitalistic intrigue, climate, the malarial mosquito have been urged severally in one context or another as an over-all cause.” [126, Wheeler.] Thus there is not a single cause for the demise of the Indus civilization. Perhaps it is safe to say that as a civilization that describes a population, it did not really demise, but moved. As a race, the Indus civilization is alive, and has evolved, and the people are known as Pakistani’s today. A history of the Indus civilization as a race is a history of shift and change, but gradual change and evolution, not dramatic upheavals or revolution. The Indus people did not die off. They just simply moved around the vast sub-continent due to unavoidable environmental circumstances. And since the time of the Aryan invasions, the inter-play with merchants from around the Gulf and Mesopotamia, and the rest of the sub-continent, the Indus valley race has always been subjected to changes. It was an area that primarily welcomed foreign influences, for strong trade ties. Racial intermingling and foreign influences were natural features of the Indus valley civilization B.C.E. Vedism developed with Aryan interjection, which eventually developed in to Brahamism, Jainism, and Buddhism. Trade made the Indus region famous, and attractive to foreigners. A history of the Indus region is a history of invasions.


As an Empire, as a fantastic, old, and rooted geo-economical force, the Indus valley civilization did come to an end. Mohenjo-daro was in all probability named “Mound of the dead”, because it was a city that was perpetually flooding, causing reoccurring destruction and reconstruction. There was a point where the population thought it wiser to move in the end, instead of reconstructing. The floods were as frequent as annual; the River Indus would swell each year due to rain and melting snow. It gradually became increasingly undesirable, unsafe and completely uninhabitable. Evidence of extreme flooding was still apparent as silt-clay deposits lay over the entire city; over the debris at the time of its excavation. Underneath the mass slush of clay were buried layers upon layers of brick platforms upon which the residents of the city kept rebuilding their homes and shops after a recent flood. [Wheeler]. According to research done by Dr. Dales in 1960, sea trade had actually stopped along the Makran Coast with the Persian Gulf around 1900 B.C.E. because of frequent flood-destruction making Mohenjo-daro unfit for international trade, and markets. This meant that the demise of Mohenjo-daro was inevitable. [Wheeler]. In fact residents of the city who could afford to move and rebuild their lives in other cities had found it more feasible to leave, consequently turning the affluent city of Mohenjo-daro in to a desperate slum. The focus of trade thus shifted to Harappa and the Rann of Kutch and its urban city Dholavira became the sea route for Persian trade. Harappan success was thus also inevitable.


Harappa did not demise as a city, as natural calamity did not hit its path. However, the importance of Harappa as the hallmark of Indus culture did shift.


It is mentioned above repeatedly that Harappan culture defined Indus culture as a whole, by 2600 B.C.E onwards. This period was marked by the height of the Indus region’s success as a flourishing, and progressive civilization. However 1900 B.C.E onwards saw a gradual shift of the territorial centre of culture from the Indus region to the middle, the Ganges River region. This was also known as the late Harappan phase. Indus culture, also known as Harappan culture shifted a long with its people, giving space for it to evolve into a new civilization, by accumulating new beliefs. Harappan unity broke down in to fragmented, smaller societies, spread-out as far as Afghanistan, and Central Asia in the north-west, and the Ganga-Yamuna Rivers in the south-east. Opportunity cost? Or just plain opportunity? Buddhism evolved around 600 B.C.E and spread though-out the sub-continent, whilst continuing to endorse the importance of trade. Most traders and merchants were Buddhists, as this knowledge system believed in equality, as opposed to the Aryan tradition of social hierarchy. Trade routes thus spread, resulting in more invasions, more political upheavals, more trade, more migrations, and a spread of Buddhism. Most caravanserais were also Buddhist monasteries, where Buddhist monks were ready to serve the weary traveling merchant by 300-200 B.C.E. Alexander the Great arrived in 326 B.C.E. only to begin a new era of culture which was a mixture of Greek and Buddhist culture known as Ghandara culture. Indus culture had evolved in to a more mature school of thought, as well as holding on to the importance of trade, and was more wide-spread. It allowed for the development of areas, such as Gujurat, and other water systems, such as The Yamuna-Ganga systems by being included in the ever expanding trade-routes. [Kenoyer].


Other smaller cities and villages around the Indus region demised simply because of a shift in the direction of the mighty river, causing most river beds to simply dry out completely. This left agricultural development in the pits. People had to move east. Besides trade, and agriculture, Indus art and craft practices were also kept alive. Pottery technology flourished, and saw more animals being included on these pots for decoration. It thus became easy to tell how far Indus culture spread and evolved. [Kenoyer].


This new tradition came to be known as the Indo-Gangetic tradition, a very valuable link which has determined the course of history through-out the sub-continent, and still defines the culture of these two regions today. This link marked a new level of development for the settling communities by 300 B.C.E. However, it was a new kind of development which saw the rise of small city-states run by monarchies, armies, metal weapons used for combat, horse-drawn chariots instead of ox-pulled ones, and of course, politics became the game of power.


The Indo-Gangetic link unarguably defines the main-stream cultural atmosphere of Pakistan today. It is intrinsically a territorial link; the people of the Indus River established it with the Ganga River, out of the sheer human instinct to survive. The Indus valley civilization did not demise in entirety. It lost a part of itself in the form of the city of Mohenjo-daro, as well as smaller cities in the south, and Gulf trade along the Makran coast. But by shifting east, it gained another water system which helped develop Indus valley culture, thought, religion, and trade. The history of Indus culture is a history of territorial shift. It naturalizes the idea of diverse ethnicities, not only existing together, but inter-breeding to make new ethnicities. All this has taken place over the course of 5000 years, and in one land. To ignore this, is to ignore our fundamental cultural history. Our culture is an indigenous culture by virtue of our changing landscape. The people of the Indus influenced the Ganges River region primarily, and not vice-versa. The culture that is practiced today is the culture that has been practiced over the centuries in the Indus valley. It is safe to say that the history of the sub-continent began in the Indus region.

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The Glaucus atlanticus sea slug



This tiny creature has gotten a fair bit of attention lately because of one simple reason: It’s absolutely crazy-looking. At first glance, it resembles a Pokémon or character from Final Fantasy more closely than a real biological animal. But the Glaucus atlanticus sea slug—commonly known as the blue sea slug or blue dragon—is indeed a genuine species. And if you swim in the right places off of South Africa, Mozambique or Australia, you just might find one floating upside down, riding the surface tension of the water’s surface.

The species has a number of specialized adaptations that allow it to engage in a surprisingly aggressive behavior: preying on creatures much bigger than itself. The blue dragon, typically just an inch long, frequently feeds on Portuguese man o’ wars, which have tentacles that average 30 feet. A gas-filled sac in the stomach allows the small slug to float, and a muscular foot structure is used to cling to the surface. Then, if it floats by a man o’ war or other cnidarian, the blue dragon locks onto the larger creature’s tentacles and consumes the toxic nematocyst cells that the man o’ war uses to immobilize fish.

The slug is immune to the toxins and collects them in special sacs within the cerata—the finger-like branches at the end of its appendages—to deploy later on. Because the man o’ war’s venom is concentrated in the tiny fingers, blue dragons can actually have more powerful stings than the much larger creatures from which they took the poisons. So, if you float by a blue dragon sometime soon: look, but don’t touch.

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Swimming Pools Are Public Toilet Bowls for Many


Healthy Living: Survey
By Piper Weiss, Shine Staff



Suggestion: Don't swim near anyone looking this relieved. (ThinkStock)


If you're taking a refreshing dip in a pool with four other people, odds are one of you is urinating. This is not gross-out myth, but cold, depressing fact from a recent survey conducted by the Water Quality & Health Council, a scientific research group sponsored by the American Chemistry Council. 


The survey, conducted in April, asked nearly 1,000 adults whether they urinate in pools. One in five bravely admitted their mistakes. And those are the ones who admitted it. 


We may act like potty-trained adults on land, but something about a body of water, even a small one, opens our natural floodgates and, according to doctors, puts us all at risk. 


"No matter how easy it is to pee anonymously in the pool, swimmers should avoid doing so," says public health expert and WQHC chairman, Dr. Chris Wiant. 


It is easy isn't it? Maybe that's because many of us were taught as kids that chlorine counteracted any accidents. Technically, that's mostly true. If pool operators maintain proper chlorine and pH levels, most waterborne germs are killed on contact. 


But 54 percent of public pools tested by the WQHC last year failed to provide the proper chlorine levels and 47 got low marks for pH balance. You can blame poor pool maintenance, but frequent urinators don't help. 


"Anything foreign that gets in the pool consumes disinfectant and makes the pool less capable of catching the next bug," Dr. Wiant tells Yahoo! Shine. So while chlorine is working overtime to clean up someone's mess, it's weakened by the time more serious bacteria dives in. 


That comes from the germs we carry on our body even before we get into to the water. While only one in five of us cop to peeing in the pool, seven in 10 say they don't shower before they swim. As much as a cold pre-swim shower ruins that first dip feeling, Wiant makes a good case for why it's crucial. 


(You may want to stop eating lunch right now, before reading on.) 


The additional bacteria we carry on skin, in particular sweat and traces of fecal matter (yes even on adults),gets mixed in the pool. "If disinfectant isn't right, bacteria is allowed to grow in pools, so someone accidentally consumes a mouthful of water like we all do when we're swimming and suddenly they're subject to serious bacteria like E.coli or salmonella." 


The high risk offenders, according to the Center for Disease Control, are those water recreational parks, a dangerous combination of packs of young swimmers and lots of accidental gulps. One targeted study by Georgia's Division of Public Health found that e.Coli infected at least 26 people at one water park in the summer of 1998, ultimately resulting in one fatality. Another study found the parasite Cryptosporidium survives even well-chlorinated water parks, posing a potentially fatal threat to those with lowered immune systems. 


But small private pools and large public ones are also potential health hazards, depending on how they're maintained. The CDC notes a rapid rise in gastro-intestinal illnesses borne from dirty swimming pools across the country in the past two decades. 


Short of getting pool maintenance certification or sweating out an unbearable summer, what can you do? 


The first step is to be a good pool Samaritan. Take it to the restroom, folks, and emphasize lots of bathroom breaks for your kids. Another important to-do: always shower before getting in the pool. If you've done your part, you still can't trust your blissfully clueless fellow swimmers. 


To find out of your pool is safe, look for some tell-tale signs of bacteria. 


"Check if you see the bottom," says Dr. Wiant. "If a pool is clear it's likely very clean and balanced, but if it's it cloudy or the sides are slimy, those are signs that bacteria is prevalent and the pool isn't filtering out germs the way it should." 


Hyper-vigilant swimmers can also purchase pool test strips at any drug store and do their own scientific assessment. "They're easy to use," he adds, "just crack one open and dip it in the pool and you'll be able to tell right away if the pool is clean." 


Another signal it's time to get out of the pool: burning, stinging eyes. Although it's not seriously harmful, when "urine combines with chlorine it becomes an irritant," Wiant says. So if you find yourself squinting in pain after a dive, ask yourself why that person doing the backstroke in the next lane looks so relaxed. It's not that nice of a day. 

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Friday, June 1, 2012

پاک فضائیہ کے شاهینوں نے اسرائیل کو 2 بار تڑپنے پر کیسے مجبور کیا ؟

 ،،،،

پاکستان اور اسرائیل آج سے نہیں بلکہ اپنی پیدائش کے پہلے دن سے ہی ایک دوسرے کے دشمن ہیں اور جب بھی موقع ملتا ہے ہم ایک دوسرے پر حملہ کرنے سے باز نہیں آتے۔ اسرائیل نے بلاشبہ پاکستان کو بہت نقصان پہنچایا ہے مگر ہم نے اسے بدلہ لئے بغیر نہیں چھوڑا۔ ہم نے بھی اسرائیلیوں پر ثابت کیا ہے کہ ہم بھی اپنی ہی مائوں کا دودھ پی کر جوان ہوئے ہیں۔ میرا تعلق پاکستان فضائیہ سے ہے اور ایسے دو معرکوں میں، میں شامل رہا ہوں جس میں ہم نے اسرائیل کی سرزمین پر جا کر اسے نا صرف للکارا بلکہ اس کے جہاز بھی تباہ کئے اور وہ آج تک اس کا بدلہ لینے کو تڑپ رہا ہے۔ م جھے آپ پاکستان ائیر فورس کا ایک گمنام سپاہی سمجھ لیں۔ پہلی بار ہم نے پہلی بار اسرائیلوں کے سینے میں خنجر اس وقت گھونپا جب عرب اسرائیل چھ روزہ جنگ شروع ہوئی تھی۔

سن 1967 ء میں عرب اسرائیل جنگ ، جسے تیسری عرب اسرائیل جنگ اور جنگ جون بھی کہا جاتا ہے مصر، عراق، اردن اور شام کے اتحاد اور اسرائیل کے درمیان لڑی گئی جس میں اسرائیل نے فیصلہ کن کامیابی حاصل کی۔

چهه روزہ جنگ میں پاک فضائیہ کے ہوا بازوں (پائلٹوں) نے بھی حصہ لیا پاکستانی ہوا باز اردن، مصر اور عراق کی فضائیہ کی جانب سے لڑے اور اسرائیلی فضائیہ کے 3 جہازوں کو مار گرایا جبکہ ان کا کوئی نقصان نہیں ہوا۔ دراصل ہوا یہ تھا کہ عرب ممالک نے پاکستان سے اپیل کی کہ اسرائیل نے اچانک حملہ کردیا ہے اور ان کے پاس ماہر پائلٹ نہیں ہیں۔ اس پر پاکستان نے فوری طور پر ایک درجن سے زائد پائلٹ بھیجے جنہوں نے داد شجاعت دی اور اسرائیل پر کئی کامیاب پروازیں کیں اور عرب ممالک میں بمباری کرنے آنے والے تین جہازوں کو مار گرایا جب کہ اسرائیلی زمینی دستوں کو ٹھیک ٹھیک نشانہ بنایا۔ انہوں نے درجنوں جاسوسی پروازیں کر کے بھی توپ خانے کی مدد کی جب کہ پسپائی میں بھی عرب فوج کو ہوائی مدد دے کر محفوظ بنایا۔ پاکستانی پائلٹس کی طرف سے حصہ لینے کا معاملہ چھپا رہنے والا تو تھا نہیں اس لئے اسرائیل نے خوب دھمکیاں دیں اور پھر وہ اس وقت فاتح بھی تھا۔

پهر مصر نے اتحادیوں کے همراه اپنی شکست کا بدلہ لینے کیلئے اسرائیل کیخلاف ایک بار پهر صف بندی کی مصر نے حملے کا فیصلہ کرلیا اور پاکستانی پائلٹ ایک بار پھر اسرائیل پر آگ برسانے کو تیار تھے۔

اس جنگ کے دوران پاکستان نے مصر اور شام کی مدد کے لئے 16 ہوا باز مشرق وسطی بھیجے اور 8 پاکستانی ہوا بازوں نے شام کی جانب سے جنگ میں حصہ لیا اور مگ-21 طیاروں میں پروازیں کیں۔ پاکستان کے فلائٹ لیفٹیننٹ اے ستار علوی یوم کپور جنگ میں پاکستان کے پہلے ہوا باز تھے جنہوں نے اسرائیل کے ایک میراج طیارے کو مار گرایا۔ انہیں شامی حکومت کی جانب سے اعزاز سے بھی نوازا گیا۔ ان کے علاوہ پاکستانی ہوا بازوں نے اسرائیل کے 4 ایف 4 فینٹم طیارے تباہ کئے جبکہ پاکستان کا کوئی جانی یا مالی نقصان نہیں ہوا۔پاکستانی پائلٹس نے اسرائیلی توپ خانے کو تباہ کرنے کے علاوہ رہنمائی فراہم کرنے والی پروازیں بھی کیں اور کئی ایسے کارنامے انجام دئے جو آج تک اسرائیلی سینے میں انگارے بن کر بے چین کررہے ہیں۔یہ پاکستانی ہوا باز 1976 ء تک شام میں موجود رہے اور شام کے ہوا بازوں کو جنگی تربیت دیتے رہے ۔ 

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