Sepotong Roti Manis dan Nikmat - Sebuah Kisah

Bob Butler kehilangan kedua kakinya pada tahun 1965 akibat ledakan ranjau di Vietnam. Ia kembali ke negerinya sebagai pahlawan perang. Dua puluh tahun kemudian dia sekali lagi membuktikan kepahlawanan yang murni berasal dari lubuk hatinya.

Butler sedang bekerja di garasi rumahnya di sebuah kota kecil di Arizona pada suatu Hari dalam musim panas ketika dia mendengar jeritan seorang wanita dari salah satu rumah tetangganya. Ia menggelindingkan kursi rodanya ke rumah ini, tetapi semak-semak yang tinggi di rumah itu tidak memungkinkan kursi rodanya mencapai pintu belakang. Maka veteran itu keluar dari kursinya Dan merangkak tanpa peduli debu Dan semak yang harus dilewatinya.

“Aku harus sampai ke sana,” ucapnya dalam hati. “Tak peduli bagaimanapun sulitnya.”

Ketika Butler tiba di rumah itu, dia tahu bahwa jeritan itu datang dari arah kolam. Di sana seorang anak perempuan berusia kira-kira tiga tahun sedang terbenam di dalamnya. Anak itu lahir tanpa lengan, sehingga ketika dia jatuh ke dalam kolam dia tidak dapat berenang. Sang ibu hanya bisa berdiri mematung sambil menangisi putri kecilnya. Butler langsung menceburkan diri dan menyelam ke dalam dasar kolam lalu membawanya naik. Wajah anak bernama Stephanie itu sudah membiru, denyut nadinya tidak terasa dan tidak benapas.

Butler segera berusaha melakukan pernafasan buatan untuk menghidupkannya kembali sementara ibunya menghubungi pemadam kebakaran melalui telepon. Dia diberitahu bahwa petugas kesehatan kebetulan sedang bertugas di tempat lain. Dengan putus ASA, dia terisak-isak sambil memeluk pundak Butler.

Sementara terus melakukan pernafasan buatan, Butler dengan tenang meyakinkan sang ibu bahwa Stephanie akan selamat. “Jangan cemas,” katanya. “Saya menjadi tangannya untuk keluar dari kolam itu. Ia akan baik-baik saja. Sekarang saya akan menjadi paru-parunya. Bila bersama-sama Kita pasti bisa.”

Beberapa saat kemudian anak kecil itu mulai terbatuk-batuk, sadar kembali Dan mulai menangis. Ketika mereka saling berpelukan Dan bergembira bersama-sama, sang ibu bertanya kepada Butler tentang bagaimana ia yakin bahwa anaknya akan selamat.

“Ketika kaki saya remuk terkena ledakan di Vietnam, saya sedang sendirian di sebuah ladang,” ceritanya kepada perempuan itu. “Tidak Ada orang lain di sekitar situ yang bisa menolong kecuali seorang gadis Vietnam yang masih kecil. Sambil berjuang menyeretnya ke desa, gadis itu berbisik dalam bahasa Inggris
patah-patah, “Tidak apa-apa. Anda akan hidup. Saya akan menjadi kaki Anda. Bersama-sama Kita pasti bisa.”

“Ini kesempatan bagi saya untuk membalas yang pernah saya terima,” katanya kepada ibu Stephanie.

Kita semua adalah malaikat-malaikat bersayap sebelah. Hanya bila saling membantu Kita semua dapat terbang ( Luciano De Crescenzo. )

Matrix Mapping: the easiest and best way to map internal controls

 

Stop and check!

The most common format for documenting internal controls (i.e. format for "control matrices") takes far too long to write and produces huge documents of little practical use. It's so inefficient that people naturally cut corners, giving a distorted view of controls and risk. I should know; I made the wrong choice myself once. Never again!

If your company has documented its internal controls using some kind of matrices or has to do so in future it is well worth getting the right format in place. This is one of those details that makes a huge difference. If you already have matrices check them and, if they are the wrong style, plan to reformat them as soon as possible. If you have still to start them or have just started a project to write control matrices, stop, check, and restart your project using the right style of matrix. If you don't you will regret it later.

Wrong and right formats

The format most people think of first when asked to map internal controls to risks is the obvious one: a list of risks, with controls written against each risk to show the risk is covered. The layout is some variation on the one below, with other columns added for extra information and cross referencing:

Risk/control objective	Controls
Risk A	Controls addressing risk A
Risk B	Controls addressing risk B
Risk C	Controls addressing risk C
Risk D	Controls addressing risk D
etc	etc

At first glance this seems sensible and there is no obvious objection in principle. However, this is a disastrous choice. If the format your company uses, or plans to use, is like this then read on.

A vastly superior format is to list controls down the left hand column, and risks across the column headings, then mark off where controls address risks within a matrix of small cells, like this:

Control	Risk A	Risk B	Risk C	Risk D	etc
Control 1		1	1
Control 2			1		1
Control 3	1				1
Control 4			1	1	1
etc

In this example, Risk A is covered by Control 3 only. Risk B is covered by Control 1 only. Risk C is covered by Controls 1, 2, and 4. And so on.

At first glance this seems unpromising. Surely there will be lots of wasted space? Won't the column headings be difficult to read? What if there are too many risks to fit across the page?

All these are minor issues whose impact can be minimised, and they are insignificant next to the hidden drawbacks of the more obvious approach. The next section looks in more detail at the advantages and disadvantages of each type.

Why this is so much better

The big problem in designing control matrices is that the relation between risks and controls is many-to-many. Each risk is typically addressed by several controls, and each control typically contributes to covering several risks. This cannot be eliminated by choosing a special set of risks or controls, so the format has to support these many-to-many relations conveniently.

The obvious format fails to do this, leaving matrix writers with a choice between repeating the same control wherever it applies, or not repeating it every time, to save space and avoid repetition, and so recording the mapping innaccurately. In practice most people try to fudge the risk descriptions to reduce the repetition problem, then mention each control only once unless that would leave a risk with no controls against it.

The result is a distorted picture that under-states the actual level of control and encourages people to place too much trust in individual controls instead of seeing the control system as have multiple lines of defence. Real control systems are made from multiple layers, but this is almost impossible to see or understand if the wrong matrix layout is used.

There are a number of other factors, summarised here:

Obvious format	Correct format
Does not conveniently represent many-to-many relations between risks and controls, leading to distortion and repetition of control descriptions.	Very easy to show many-to-many relations. Avoids distortion. Controls are described only once, saving space.
Does not provide a list of controls.	Provides a list of controls, which can be neatly organised into control types.
Repetition of controls makes it hard to record extra information about controls, while their disorganised distribution through the matrix makes specific controls hard to find quickly.	Extra information can be put against each control and the controls can be grouped meaningfully. For example, it is easy to give each manager a list of the controls he/she is responsible for, or produce a list of all control reports needed from a new system, or pull out the rules for segregation of duties.
Hard to automate.	Easily automated on a spreadsheet giving dramatically smaller matrices and the ability to sort controls. (See below for a full explanation.)
Does not prompt people to think of controls.	Provides ideas for controls.
Almost useless for designing controls.	Ideal for designing controls.

Different types of analysis

The most common type of analysis is one that goes through accounting processes (e.g. sales from sales order through to collection of cash) looking at controls that help ensure the accounts are correct, or at least acceptably accurate. In this analysis it is not important whether the company is trading successfully, so long as the accounts accurately reflect performance.

As corporate governance rules have developed in various countries it is these matrices that are usually among the first requirements, directly or indirectly.

However, other types of analysis are also possible. For example:

• Revenue and cost assurance: Mistakes and system flaws cost businesses dear through incomplete billing and over-payment for goods and services received. Systematic mapping of internal controls is one way to identify where this might be happening and find ways to reduce it.
• Data conversion: When data is moved from an old computer system to a new one a set of checks is needed to ensure that data is not lost or damaged in the process.
• Profitable trading: This kind of analysis is concerned with objectives like selling the right goods at a good price and getting paid for them.
• Compliance with laws and regulations: This can be quite a lengthy analysis, even in overview.
• Support processes: For example, people in a company's computer department carry out processes that support others. The computer department's processes can also be analysed for error and fraud risks.
• IT security risks: e-business processes need careful security design and a detailed analysis is needed to confirm that the design is adequate, in principle at least.
• Business unit overview: This is the level at which top level analyses are usually pitched for compliance with corporate governance regulations such as the UK's Turnbull guidance.

Risk frameworks and control objectives

The ideal framework of risks to use as column headings in a control matrix is one that omits nothing significant within the scope of the analysis and matches conveniently with the effects of the internal controls. If the risks are too broad it is difficult to show coverage accurately. (A control has to be put against the risk but it is not clear that the control only covers part of that particular risk.) On the other hand, if the risks are too fine the matrix becomes large unnecessarily.

If the scope of the analysis is to ensure correct accounting there is a simple and systematic way to generate a framework of risks. Here it is, step by step:

1. If many accounting cycles are being analysed, decide how to divide up the cycles e.g. "purchases" or "purchases and payables"? It is usually best to go with the longest, most inclusive processes possible. Do not forget to include processes like returns and adjustments that may be infrequent and low value, typically, because these are often weakly controlled areas.
2. Identify the underlying information processing, excluding internal control steps. Most people find it helps to draw diagrams but with practice this can be omitted. Look for the physical stores of data (e.g. paper forms, computer databases, and computer files), physical transfers of data, data capture steps, and calculations. Exclude internal control steps such as checks and authorisations, which are things done to ensure that the underlying information processing is done correctly. It is not usually necessary to identify every data movement that happens within a single database used by a single computer application, though this can sometimes be helpful. Be sure to list all the data capture steps including things like bad debt provision entry, and obscure reference data edits.
3. Carve up the underlying processing into steps. Typically there will be data capture steps, data transfer steps, and calculation (including summary) steps. It is not necessary to list the steps in any particular order but it is clearer to work in the order of processing transactions, with reference data done last or interleaved with transaction processing steps. There are choices in selecting the steps but aim to minimise the number of steps while maximising the precision of the mapping.
4. Apply a standard set of "control objectives" to every step. The traditional control objectives are Completeness, Accuracy, and Validity, to which Uniqueness should be added. (See below for an explanation.) The effect of this is to divide up all possible errors at each step into a small number of standard categories.

Control objectives are just the flip side of risks. If the risk is "Incomplete posting of sales to the sales ledger", then the objective is "Complete posting of sales to the sales ledger." The traditional trio of Completeness, Accuracy, and Validity is based on the idea that accounting processes mainly involve copying information from one place to another, item by item (e.g. sale by sale). "Complete" means that all items that should have been copied across have been. "Accurate" means that all items copied across kept their value or any calculation is correct. "Valid" means no items are inserted without having been copied from the previous stage i.e. nothing has been made up. There is one further error that could occur, which is for an item to be copied across more than once. Traditionally, this is included under either Completeness or Validity, but neither approach is satisfactory as many controls confirm Completeness or Validity without helping on duplication. It is best to introduce a fourth control objective, "Uniqueness."

These control objectives are always with respect to the previous stage of processing, rather than to original truth. For example, controls often ensure that some data has been copied Completely from one database to another, but not that the data are a complete record of the business activities they represent. So, Complete, Accurate, Valid, and Unique always mean compared with the data at the previous step.

Some data flows are "structured" in the sense that they are made of units, each of which is itself composed of smaller units. For example, the data flow may be made of a series of files, each of which is composed of a number of records, each of which is made up of a number of fields of data.

If some of the controls apply to one or more levels but not all it is possible to show this distinction on the control matrix by using multiple Steps (i.e. columns) for the data flow, one for each level of the structure you want to analyse separately.

Debt management is often included as an extra control objective. Strictly this is not directly an issue for financial reporting, provided bad debt provisions are accurate. However, it is comforting to know that doubtful debts are not taken on as this reduces the risk of provisions turning out to be incorrect.

Three other control objectives that might be used are confidentiality, auditability, and non-repudiation. (Non-repudiation relates to electronic records of contracts. Suppose a customer places an order but later claims not to have done. If you provide an ordinary computer record of the order the customer could say you made it up. However, modern cryptographic techniques allow you to retain a record of an order received electronically from a customer in such a way that you could not have made it up, and so the customer cannot "repudiate" the order.)

How to decide if a control applies to a step

A control should be shown as applying to a step if it increases the probability that any of the control objectives have been met for that step. The set of steps a control applies to can be called the "span" of the control. Here are some examples to show the principle:

• e.g. A hash total is used to check that a file of data has been copied without alteration from one computer to another. (Let's assume the interface is one step in the process break down.) The control should be shown as applying to that interface step only.
• e.g. A reconciliation is performed between data at one point in the processing and another point, three steps later. The control should be shown as applying to all three steps.
• e.g. A control is used to ensure that software programs within an application are not changed by accident. This slightly reduces the risk of error and fraud of various types for all steps performed using that application.
• e.g. A computer checks data to see that it matches a business rule, such as that customer ages should be between 0 and 150 years old. Some mistyped dates of birth will be caught by this check. The assurance applies to all steps prior to this point, because an error at any of these steps could be caught by the check (unless of course exactly the same check is also performed earlier on).

Compressing control matrices using control objectives

If the risk framework uses a small set of standardised control objectives as discussed above it is possible to produce a rigorous but extraordinarily compact matrix.

The control objectives addressed by an internal control are a property of the control, and do not change depending on where it is applied. Therefore, it is enough to provide a column for each step in the processing cycle and show in the matrix which steps each control provides assurance over. To capture the analysis at the more detailed level of control objectives, use the spreadsheet to record the control objectives addressed by each control and then summarise the overall assurance on each step for each control objective.

Here is the basic format to use. The spreadsheet formulae are simple, using nothing more sophisticated than the sumif() function in the summary cells. The new elements of the layout are coloured.

	C	A	V	U	Step A	Step B	Step C	Step D	etc
Control 1	1	1				1	1
Control 2	1	1	1				1		1
Control 3				1	1				1
Control 4		1	1				1	1	1
etc
Summary
Completeness					0	1	2	0	1
Accuracy					0	1	3	1	2
Validity					0	0	2	1	2
Uniqueness					1	0	0	0	1

In practice it is better to put the summary cells at the top of the page so they can be frozen on screen as you scroll around the matrix. This way you can always see the summarised position as you work.

It is also helpful to set up rows to show the perceived risk of each type of error for each step - think of it as a target for the total coverage score. In the example above the assurance provided by each control for each control objective is shown as all or nothing i.e. 1 or 0. However, controls vary greatly in their effectiveness and this can be shown by using factors other than one.

The difference between the coverage target and the coverage achieved can be calculated by the spreadsheet and on some spreadsheet programs it is possible to colour code the differences automatically using conditional formatting to show where weaknesses lie.

Here is an example showing these techniques:

Targets					Step A	Step B	Step C	Step D	etc
Completeness					0.5	1.0	0.2	0.6	1.0
Accuracy					1.0	0.5	0.2	2.0	1.0
Validity					1.0	1.0	0.2	0.2	1.0
Uniqueness					0.5	1.0	1.0	2.0	1.5
Differences					Step A	Step B	Step C	Step D	etc
Completeness					-0.5	-0.5	0.5	-0.6	-0.8
Accuracy					-1.0	0.5	2.8	-1.0	1.0
Validity					-1.0	-1.0	0.6	-0.1	-0.2
Uniqueness					0.0	-1.0	-1.0	-2.0	-1.0
	C	A	V	U	Step A	Step B	Step C	Step D	etc
Control 1	0.5	1.0				1	1
Control 2	0.2	1.0	0.7				1		1
Control 3				0.5	1				1
Control 4		1.0	0.1				1	1	1
etc

In this example there are obviously some problems with the coverage. There are many gaps but also some over-controlled steps where it may be possible to cut out some work and complexity from the controls.

These numbers are all subjective judgements, but this is still better than unquantified judgement. In some cases it may be possible to support judgements with data and calculations based on data, but this is unlikely to be worthwhile except with the most costly processes.

One problem with this technique is to calibrate the targets correctly. You can get a feel for targets by scoring actual controls on a process that is thought to be well controlled and where performance has been good (i.e. errors known and tolerably low). These scores provide a guide for setting targets on other processes.

This kind of sophistication is helpful if you can do it but not essential. Even without targets and coverage factors the spreadsheet analysis is still far more precise than it would be with the conventional approach.

Another enhancement to the basic spreadsheet is to add another worksheet to show a coloured version of the original matrix, for each control objective individually. This can be done using a sheet for each control objective or a single sheet with a cell into which you type the one letter abbreviation of the objective whose analysis is to be displayed.

Helpful control frameworks

The ideal control framework groups all possible controls into a set of layers, or lines of defence, on the basis of the nature of the control. By finding or designing controls under each category it should be possible to produce a complete system covering all relevant levels of management control. If it is difficult to design effective controls at one level it should be easy to see the other levels at which compensating strength can be designed.

It is pointless to try to group controls according to the control objectives they address, though many people do this, or are taught to.

Here's the multi-layer model I like and recommend for controlling financial cycles, starting at the top:

• Management monitoring
• Process monitoring
• Monitor past effectiveness of the controls and take corrective action, for example by tracking error rates, transactions via exception streams, and lost revenue and changing the process to make it inherently more reliable, or adding checks.
• Monitor future events and adapt the process and its controls in good time, for example through capacity planning, looking ahead for high risk changes and spreading them out, and checking for forthcoming contract changes that will be difficult and time consuming to implement.
• Monitor the controls to ensure they are operating, for example through audit work, reviewing reports of control performance, and control self assessment. Where reliance is placed on exception reporting no news is good news - or the controls have stopped operating. This is particularly important for controls that aim to cover risks that rarely occur.
• Business monitoring
Reporting trading performance through information derived through the process itself. In a business unit there may be many business processes, each with monitoring as above, each providing information about trading performance. This is relevant to ensuring financial information is correct because scrutiny of trading performance can identify unexpected numbers, that may then be incorrect.
• Control activities
• Protect the process from interference, using physical and software security measures.
• Make the process recoverable, for example through data backups, disaster recovery planning, and building resilience and recoverability into every interface.
• Make the process inherently reliable, for example, by assuring software quality, testing the usability of software which interacts with humans, and using reliable hardware.
• Put checks on data and processing in place, with associated corrective action, to detect process errors, interference with the process such as fraud, and attempts to pass fraud through the process.
• Put audit trails in place, so that auditors can gain assurance of correct functioning, and so that errors can be investigated and corrected easily.
Of course other control frameworks can be used, but whatever framework you use it is a good idea to use headings and sub-headings at least to organise the list of controls in the control matrix.
Controls can be given a code so that if they get out of order they can be sorted back into the original order of the control framework.
This is particularly useful if you build a database of controls and control types. By selecting the controls that apply to a particular process you can sort them up into the control matrix area. For example, if you go for the WebTrust seal of approval there is quite detailed guidance about the controls expected so these can be used as a starting point in any analysis under WebTrust.
Here is an example illustrating control framework headings and sort codes. Note that only some of the controls are shown, in order to keep the example short and the new elements are yellow.


	Sort	C	A	V	U	Step A	Step B	Step C	Step D	etc
MONITORING	A
BUSINESS MONITORING	AA
Weekly margin analysis and meeting	AA1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
PROCESS MONITORING	AB
Downtime analysis and meeting	AB1	1	1	1	1		1	1
Quality review statistics	AB2		1			1
End-to-end reconciliation summary	AB3	1		1	1	1	1	1	1	1
CONTROL ACTIVITIES	C
PROTECTION	CA
Building security guards and alarms	CA1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
Computer room security	CA2	1	1	1	1		1	1
Operating system level passwords	CA3	1	1	1	1		1	1
RECOVERY CONTROLS	CB
Nightly backups of main servers	CB1	1		1	1		1	1
etc

Another refinement is to add a summary worksheet that computes the coverage achieved from each type of control within the control framework. This could be useful if you have a high level design for the controls that specifies certain levels of control from each type of control. High level designs are extremely useful but beyond the scope of this paper.


Adding information about controls

If the control matrices are on spreadsheet and the controls are listed vertically as recommended it is easy to add columns to capture useful information about each control (in addition to its profile of coverage of control objectives). This information can be sorted and reported to meet various needs. But what information is useful? Here are some suggestions:

• Design and implementation information: e.g. name of developer, whether software needs to be written, whether the control already exists or not. Obviously, this is relevant if controls are still being developed.
• Manager responsible for operation of the control: Useful for various review and confirmation exercises. Processes almost always cut across departments but people naturally want to know what they are responsible for.
• Frequency of operation of the control: This can sometimes be useful where there is a choice and you want to make the most economic set of decisions about frequencies.
If you are designing controls within a project to implement a new system, or set of systems, expect to be asked to specify requirements for software (e.g. access controls, reports, interface checks) months before other decisions about control have to be taken, and probably a bit before you are ready.
The format recommended in this paper was developed from my experiences in this kind of project. It makes it easier to identify controls with an implication for software, while high level design of control systems makes it possible to respond to even the most demanding software developers (though this is outside the scope of this paper). The technique of marking off controls against risks makes it easier to make changes to the matrices as the software and process people change their minds about how things will work, which is another major practical advantage.


Formatting to print

If you've been paying attention up to this point you will have realised that most control matrix spreadsheets will not fit onto one sheet of paper. Compared to the more obvious format, the format recommended is far more compact, but it can be difficult to fit to the width of a page even in landscape format.
The following techniques reduce the problem:

• Stay electronic: Avoid hardcopy altogether if possible. You can get more text on a spreadsheet if you use comments for extended descriptions and comments. These cannot be printed at all.
• Turn the risks through 90 degrees: This allows the columns to be narrower.
• Hide columns: Hide any columns not needed by the person who wants the hardcopy.
• Set column and row headings so every page has them: Possible on some spreadsheet programs. If not, split the matrix by splitting the set of risks/steps.

Finally

Mapping internal controls to risks is something more and more companies are expected to do. Every year, countless people waste countless hours doing it in inefficient and inaccurate ways. This paper explains a way to do the work more easily, and yet also produce a more useful and accurate result.

 Source: http://www.internalcontrolsdesign.co.uk

Shocked by the possibility of centralized AI

Two figures above is comparing Human Synapse activity with Internet activity. And the result shows surprising similarity....

At the first, I've not surprised with the figure...but when I began to continue tracking in my mind, I've found something ineterest that could't make me stop thinking about it. In fact I knew the similarity since a few years back. I've known it but never try to think it more.

Without any reason, I figured :" Yeah...it's possible if our brain neural network be the same as internet traffic visualization since neurons, or nerve cells, each have a pair of projections—the axon and the dendrite, which transmit and receive impulses, respectively. On the other hand the internet especially in P2P sharing have Client Servers and each have pair of projections - the suppliers and the consumers of resources. Yap, it was a suitable analogy...I thought.

But....suddenly, without any reason, I've a question in my mind....Is it possible if once time in the future of the world will have one centralized artificial intelligence ( i called it) that can fully control all the network ( all the brain)  using internet or other form of electronic device ( like immersed nano chip or internet network program which can penetrate and fully take control our mind, etc).

Nowadays the possibility of one mandatory artificial intelligence which can control the human brain increasing since the nano technology discovered. The application of nano technology influence in neuro science, biotechnology, information technology significantly. 

Imagining it, I can say my negative perception is more dominate my mind than positive perception...I knew it was not fair .... this happened to me because since I was young I have raised in Christianity Doctrine that said in the end of days there will appear deceivers that will use the immersed chip in human body to control us....

Later I decided not to use that doctrine again since I grew up in maturity and my reading experience.. so I prefered to compare this matter wisely...when I did it, I got one sentence to conclude my thought about it :

In a dynamic and uncertainty thing, there will always be a chance that a new thing can be exploited to have the positive impact or negative impact. And we are human become the decision maker to it.

So back to my spontaneous reaction to this matter, I must observe this matter with all the possibilities impact to us as a human being. And I got whatever the new thing arise before us, it is our decision as a human being to bring it to the positive thing for human kind or vice versa....

And I decide to believe that both of neuro science or information and communication technology progress/ improvement will bring the positive impact for humand kind....

Finally I decide not to fear about the negative impact from the possibbility emergence of centralized artificial inteligence that can control our mind.

15 Styles of Distorted Thinking

---

• Filtering: You take the negative details and magnify them while filtering out all positive aspects of a situation.
• Polarized Thinking: Things are black or white, good or bad. You have to be perfect or you're a failure. There is no middle ground.
• Overgeneralization: You come to a general conclusion based on a single incident or piece of evidence. If something bad happens once you expect it to happen over and over again.
• Mind Reading:  Without their saying so, you know what people are feeling and why they act the way they do. In particular, you are able to divine how people are feeling toward you.
• Castastrophizing: You expect disaster. you notice or hear about a problem and start "what if's". What if tragedy strikes? What if it happens to you?"
• Personalization: Thinking that everything people do or say is some kind of reaction to you. You also compare yourself to others, trying to determine who's smarter, better looking, etc.
• Control Fallacies: If you feel externally controlled, you see yourself as helpless, a victim of fate. The fallacy of internal control has you responsible for the pain and happiness of everyone around you.
• Fallacy of Fairness: You feel resentful because you think you know what's fair but other people won't agree with you.
• Blaming: You hold other people responsible for your pain, or take the other tack and blame yourself for every problem or reversal.
• Should: You have a list of ironclad rules about how you and other people should act. People who break the rules anger you and you feel guilty if you violate the rules.
• Emotional Reasoning: You believe that what you feel must be true-automatically. If you feel stupid and boring, then you must be stupid and boring.
• Fallacy of Change: You expect that other people will change to suit you if you just pressure or cajole them enough. You need to change people because your hope for happiness seem to depend entirely on them.
• Global Labeling: You generalize one or two qualities into a negative global judgment.
• Being Right: You are continually on trial to prove that your opinions and actions are correct. Being wrong is unthinkable and you will go to any length to demonstrate your rightness.
• Heaven's Reward Fallacy: You expect all your sacrifice and self-denial to pay off, as if there were someone keeping score. You feel better when the reward doesn't come

Source: http://www.surrenderworks.com

Taking Criticism Effectively

“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary.
It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body.
It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.”
~ Winston Churchill

Criticism is crucial for personal improvement. It’s the most direct way to find out what you should improve on. However, accepting criticism can be emotionally challenging. Afterall, we’re only human, who wants to hear bad stuff about ourselves?

It’s hard to not take it personally. Our instinctive reaction is to become defensive and we shut out potentially helpful and life-enhancing tips. By doing this, we miss out on what could supercharge our improvement.

So how can you take criticism without getting self-conscious and defensive?

Answer: An effective way to accept criticism is to externalize it.

When you externalize criticism, you escape the defensiveness trap. You stop being self-conscious and take criticism objectively, which lets you reap the benefits of the helpful tips that the criticism contains.


The criticism isn’t directed at you personally, but at a writer, artist, worker, developer (or whatever else you’re getting feedback for) that just happens to have the same name as you. When you take criticism objectively, your initial defensiveness fades away, simply because you’re not taking it personally anymore.

Externalizing criticism lets you extract helpful tips from even the most critical feedback. You take the bits that make sense to you and discard the rest. You don’t risk getting defensive or even feeling bad or self-conscious.

Externalizing criticism is also a shield from bad and unhelpful criticism. It doesn’t matter how much or what kind of comments and criticism you get: you look at it all objectively. You can take what makes sense to you and discard the rest.

When you externalize criticism, you can easily take and use it to supercharge your personal improvement.

5 Steps to Effectively Taking Criticism

Ready to improve your taking of criticism? Good.

Next time you ask for feedback, follow these 5 steps to externalize criticism:

1. Wait for your gut reaction to pass before doing anything – let your emotions disappear, so you don’t take the criticism personally and become defensive
2. Imagine the criticism is directed at someone else – some person who happens to have your name and does exactly what you do
3. Keep your mouth shut – listen, don’t defend
4. Discuss the person’s points – asking questions will a) help you to get even more useful tips from them, and b) externalize the criticism more (you’re seeing it even more objectively this way)

Rinse and repeat every time you get feedback until externalizing criticism becomes a habit.

(Bonus) How to even more effectively take criticism:

1. Be confident – believe in what you do, so that even the most critical comments don’t sway your direction
2. Have a clear goal in what you’re doing – so when you ask for feedback on it, you can take criticism to improve the key areas rather than let others dictate the direction and get lost

Why It’s So Hard to Take Criticism

The reason we get defensive when taking criticism is because we’re tied to our ego. So when someone is giving tips on how we can improve, that person is indirectly acknowledging that we’re not great at something. And our ego gets bruised.

As Dr. Leon F. Seltzer explains in his Psychology Today article on why criticism is so hard to take:

“Criticism, even well-intended criticism, can be understood as a direct assault on our ego. When (however unconsciously) we’ve come to associate our very selves with our ego or point of view, then whenever our perspective is questioned, disbelieved, or disputed, we cannot but experience ourselves in jeopardy – our mental and emotional poise at once thrown into disequilibrium.”

Even if it’s made clear that the criticism is not to criticize but instead show how you can improve, you naturally want to defend yourself. And when you go into defensive mode, you don’t get the tips from the criticism that could really supercharge your improvement.

So detach yourself from your ego – at least when you take criticism. Externalize the criticism so you look at it objectively, rather than as a critique of yourself (and thus your ego).

An Experience with Criticism

Back then, I don't really care what people think of me. When they told me that they don't like my attitude or the way I handle things, I think that I'm right, and they should be able to accept it.

But as I grew up, I am able to take criticism more openly. I will never get mad to the person who criticized me. I thank them for telling me my minus point. Only true friend are able to do that.

After they criticized me, I will listen and never argue. But if I had my reason, I will tell them. But then I guess, it is in our instinct to be defensive. But I do take note and on my own free time, I will think it thoroughly and think of ways to improve whatever it is that has been bothering them.

So friends, if you had anything about me you want to critic, feel free to contact me. I welcome criticism, that's the only way one can see oneself from another person's eye :)

How to Take Criticism

Having trouble taking criticism? Know that the useful tips can help, but you block yourself from them by taking criticism personally and getting defensive? Don’t worry – it’s a natural reaction, and there’s a solution: Effectively accept criticism by externalizing it.

You’ll supercharge your personal improvement by being able to easily get useful tips from people’s feedback. You’ll look at the criticism objectively and take away what makes sense to you, using it to improve what you’re doing. And by listening and discussing instead of defending, you’ll get even more use out of the criticism.

Now go out there and ask for some feedback. Take the criticism, externalize it, and supercharge your improvement.
Source: http://jessymclaren.blogspot.com/2011/02/how-to-take-criticism.html

Dysfunctional Math

A defining characteristic of our age is the unusual math. Today's unprecedented numbers and figures are matched with graphs increasingly exponential in nature--especially the hyper-exponential, purely vertical Profusion Curve. What makes this disconcerting is that plotting the math into the future leads to dysfunction in nearly all directions. Simply stated, the math no longer works in a variety of critical settings.

This math problem arises inevitably from the process of progress. Progress always gives us more and more of everything faster and faster. In the past, when more is what we needed, it was glorious to receive such profusion almost automatically. Now, however, progress is mathematically uncontrollable and volatile. Modern progress has a math problem, and in many ways it will dominate our future. When history decided to explode, it chose to do so on our generational shift.

Following is a representative list to help illustrate this profound mathematical growth. It's important to realize that this is but a partial list and that any single number is not the problem. It's only when all the dots are connected through integration that the true picture of dysfunction comes into view.

• More video is uploaded to YouTube in 60 days than all 3 networks created in 60 years.
• Google scientists counted over 1 trillion URLs (resources, documents, domain names) on the Web.
• The average American is exposed to 10 hours of media per day.
• Half of this is television at 34 hours of TV per week on average.
• Go to college and you can choose from over 500 baccalaureate degrees.
• Get a satellite dish and choose from over 1,000 movies a month.
• The average grocery store has 30,000 different products.
• There are 55,000 configurations of coffee at Starbucks.
• We each must learn to operate 20,000 pieces of equipment in our lifetime; In the next century, we'll have a million times more technology than we do now.
• 400,000 books per year are published in US and Great Britain.
• Amazon.com offers 24 million consumer products of all kinds, and has sold over 7.5 million unique titles.
• WebMD, with 22 million visitors per month, has a privacy statement link at the bottom of their home page. Click and read their 30-page explanation of how they'll use your personal data.
• "There are 35,000 publications a year in neuroscience, and no single researcher knows even 1% of that."
• Artificial intelligence is increasing ten million times faster than human intelligence.
• Knowledge workers check email 50 times a day, instant messaging 77 times a day, and visit 40 websites per day.
• The average desk worker starts something new every 3 minutes.
• Information overload costs businesses $650 bil/yr and stress costs $300 bil/yr.
• Information is increasing at a compound annual 60%.
• One third of us live with extreme stress and 48% believe it has increased over past 5 years.
• There was more change in the last century than in all of recorded history prior to 1900.
• There will be a thousand times more change in this century than the last.
• Apple offers 225,000 apps in its Apps Store, and ten billion were downloaded in just two years.
• The new Fiat 500 subcompact has one-half million combinations to choose from.
• Malicious spam (daily) jumped from 600 million to 3 billion during a recent six-month span.
• 3.5 million words of legislation and 8,694 bills introduced in the 2009 Congress.
• There are 90,000 governmental bodies in the US.
• U.S. businesses and households will spend 7.5 billion hours complying with tax laws this year.
• In 1800 there was just one city with a million people; now there are 381.
• The percentages of households in the US that are married couple households: 1950 - 79%; 1960 - 74%; 1970 - 70%; 1980 - 61%; 1990 - 56%; 2000 - 52%; 2010 - 50%
• CERN, the new particle accelerator on the border of France and Switzerland, is the largest information generator in history, generating one billion particle interactions/sec and creating one trillion bytes/sec of information. This must be algorithmed down in 3 microseconds by a series of computers to a few hundred bytes which are saved for future examination. All other bytes must be immediately jettisoned forever, to make room for the next second's worth of data.
• Economist Mary Meeker, a securities analyst and venture capitalist with Merrill Lynch, Salomon, and Morgan Stanley, and "One of the ten smartest in tech" according to Fortune 2010: "I took a deep dive into these questions a little more than a year ago, and I'm finally up for air....By our rough estimate, USA Inc. has a net worth of negative $44 trillion. That comes to $143,000 per capita. Negative." (Business Week, Feb 2011)
• USA Today, 6-7-11: "The government added $5.3 trillion in new financial obligations in 2010, largely for programs such as Medicare and Social Security, to bring the total of unpaid financial promises to a record $61.6 trillion."

Healthcare Math dysfunction

• Healthcare costs are now $2.6 trillion/yr. In 1970, when I began medical school, this was $74 billion/yr.
• Healthcare as a percentage of GDP: 1960 - 5.2%; 1970 - 7.2%; 1980 - 9.1%; 1990 - 12.3%; 2000 - 13.8%; 2011 - 17.6%
• Doctors graduating from medical school owe an average of $155,000, while a quarter of new med school grads owe over $200,000. It's not uncommon to hear of med student debt over $400,000.
• Medicare expenditures last year reached $523 billion but with income of only $486 billion--a gap of $37 billion in one year.
• 10,000 baby-boomers will become eligible for Medicare every day for the next 19 years, causing the Medicare fiscal discrepancy to widen rapidly and unsustainably.
• The PDR (Physician Desk Reference) has 3,300 pages; when first created in 1948, it had 300 pages.
• If I read two healthcare related articles every day for a year, next year at this time I would be 1,000 years behind in my reading.
• The 1965 Medicare/Medicaid bill was 137 pages; Thirty years later, there were over 130,000 pages of rules to comply with.
• The 1993 Clinton Healthcare Reform Act had 1,432 pages, called by one Democratic Senator "overwhelmingly complex, almost frighteningly complex."
• The current healthcare reform act (Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act) is twice as large, at 2,800 pages, and will be the most complex and expensive issue in U.S. history--and, if the multiplier holds, will result in millions of pages of regulations.

We should be both alarmed and assured.

Alarmed, because there's no way we can handle numbers like these--particularly when they'll only continue to increase vertically. In the past, the math was mild, manageable, and comprehensible. Now, none of these descriptors apply. The math has gotten away from us, the numbers have gone rogue. Dysfunction? You want to see dysfunction? Stay tuned.

Assured, because God is particularly good at math. Oxford's mathematical physicist, Roger Penrose, has calculated that the precision of the created universe is on the order of 10 to the 10th to the 123rd. "This is an extraordinary figure," he writes. "One could not possibly even write the number down in full...Even if we were to write a zero on each separate proton and on each separate neutron in the entire universe, we should fall far short of writing down the figure needed."

"The Great Architect of the Universe now begins to appear as a pure mathematician," said Sir James Jeans, a contemporary of Einstein. "The universe can be best pictured, though still very imperfectly and inadequately, as consisting of pure thought, the thought of what we must describe as a mathematical thinker."

"Such as say that things infinite are past God's knowledge," wrote Augustine, "may just as well leap headlong into this pit of impiety, and say that God knows not all numbers...What madman would say so?...What are we mean wretches that dare presume to limit His knowledge?"

As for me and my house, we'll stick with the One who knows all numbers.

Did you know?

• That the number of electrons that pass through a filament of a light bulb in a minute equals the number of drops of water that flow over Niagara Falls in a century?
• That the number of electrons in a single leaf is much larger than the number of pores of all the leaves of all the trees in the world?
• That the number of molecules in a pint of water placed end to end would form a chain encircling the Earth over 200 million times?
• That of the 1030 snow crystals necessary to form an Ice Age, each snow flake--comprised of a hundred million trillion water molecules--is unique in all the universe?   

Source: http://www.richardswenson.org                                                                                                            

The Virtue Behind The Word

 The fish trap exists because of the fish. Once you've gotten the fish you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit. Once you've gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning. Once you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can talk with him?  ~Chuang Tzu

First of all, by this quote, as though I am reminded that sometimes we should capture the meanings behind the words. Eventhough in fact we doesn't always get it but for the positive thing it can be a useful to catch quickly the meaning that be contained in our friend's words...Yes, I should learn it more and more...

Second thing, It is reminded me also to learn the words seen incisive and rude but the truly meaning in it are to reminded, awaken and resuscitate us from something wrong....sooo once again we have to wise to deal with this kind of words.....reserve it first...serach the meaning....if it is to awaken us...transform it for our virtue...and otherwise to blame us with no reason....reject it as soon as possible.....continue your way to live the life...That is..... 

Complete Solutions: Classic Exercises On Lateral Thinking

1. There is a man who lives on the top floor of a very tall building. Everyday he gets the elevator down to the ground floor to leave the building to go to work. Upon returning from work though, he can only travel half way up in the lift and has to walk the rest of the way unless it's raining! Why?

This is probably the best known and most celebrated of all lateral thinking puzzles. It is a true classic. Although there are many possible solutions which fit the initial conditions, only the canonical answer is truly satisfying.

2. A man and his son are in a car accident. The father dies on the scene, but the child is rushed to the hospital. When he arrives the surgeon says, "I can't operate on this boy, he is my son!" How can this be?

3. A man is wearing black. Black shoes, socks, trousers, coat, gloves and ski mask. He is walking down a back street with all the street lamps off. A black car is coming towards him with its light off but somehow manages to stop in time. How did the driver see the man?

4. One day Kerry celebrated her birthday. Two days later her older twin brother, Terry, celebrated his birthday. How?

5.. Why is it better to have round manhole covers than square ones? This is logical rather than lateral, but it is a good puzzle that can be solved by lateral thinking techniques. It is supposedly used by a very well-known software company as an interview question for prospective employees.


6. A man went to a party and drank some of the punch. He then left early. Everyone else at the party who drank the punch subsequently died of poisoning. Why did the man not die?

7. A man died and went to Heaven. There were thousands of other people there. They were all naked and all looked as they did at the age of 21. He looked around to see if there was anyone he recognized. He saw a couple and he knew immediately that they were Adam and Eve. How did he know?

8. A woman had two sons who were born on the same hour of the same day of the same year. But they were not twins. How could this be so?

9. A man walks into a bar and asks the barman for a glass of water. The barman pulls out a gun and points it at the man. The man says 'Thank you' and walks out. This puzzle claims to be the best of the genre. It is simple in its statement, absolutely baffling and yet with a completely satisfying solution. Most people struggle very hard to solve this one yet they like the answer when they hear it or have the satisfaction of figuring it out.

10. A murderer is condemned to death. He has to choose between three rooms. The first is full of raging fires, the second is full of assassins with loaded guns, and the third is full of lions that haven't eaten in 3 years. Which room is safest for him?

11. A woman shoots her husband. Then she holds him under water for over 5 minutes. Finally, she hangs him. But 5 minutes later they both go out together and enjoy a wonderful dinner together. How can this be?

12. There are two plastic jugs filled with water. How could you put all of this water into a barrel, without using the jugs or any dividers, and still tell which water came from which jug?

13. What is black when you buy it, red when you use it, and gray when you throw it away?

14. Can you name three consecutive days without using the words Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday? (or day names in any other language)

15. This is an unusual paragraph. I'm curious how quickly you can find out what is so unusual about it. It looks so plain you would think nothing was wrong with it. In fact, nothing is wrong with it! It is unusual though. Study it, and think about it, but you still may not find anything odd. But if you work at it a bit, you might find out.



Solutions

1. The man is very, very short and can only reach halfway up the elevator buttons. However, if it is raining then he will have his umbrella with him and can press the higher buttons with it.

2. The surgeon was his mother.

3. It was day time.

4. At the time she went into labor, the mother of the twins was traveling by ship. The older twin, Terry, was born first early on March 1st. The ship then crossed a time zone and Kerry, the younger twin, was born on February the 28th. Therefore, the younger twin celebrates her birthday two days before her older brother.

5. A square manhole cover can be turned and dropped down the diagonal of the manhole. A round manhole cannot be dropped down the manhole. So for safety and practicality, all manhole covers should be round.

6. The poison in the punch came from the ice cubes. When the man drank the punch, the ice was fully frozen. Gradually it melted, poisoning the punch.

7. He recognized Adam and Eve as the only people without navels. Because they were not born of women, they had never had umbilical cords and therefore they never had navels. This one seems perfectly logical but it can sometimes spark fierce theological arguments. (Just what a HUMOR list needs!!) ;

8. They were two of a set of triplets (or quadruplets, etc.). This puzzle stumps many people. They try outlandish solutions involving test-tube babies or surrogate mothers. Why does the brain search for complex solutions when there is a much simpler one available?

9.. The man had hiccups. The barman recognized this from his speech and drew the gun in order to give him a shock. It worked and cured the hiccups--so the man no longer needed the water. The is a simple puzzle to state but a difficult one to solve. It is a perfect example of a seemingly irrational and incongruous situation having a simple and complete explanation. Amazingly this classic puzzle seems to work in different cultures and languages.

10. The third. Lions that haven't eaten in three years are dead.

11. The woman was a photographer. She shot a picture of her husband, developed it, and hung it up to dry.

12. Freeze them first. Take them out of the jugs and put the ice in the barrel. You will be able to tell which water came from which jug.

13. The answer is Charcoal.

14.. Sure you can: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow!

15. The letter "e," which is the most common letter in the English language, does not appear once in the long paragraph...

Alternate Solutions

4. Because one of them did not necessarily celebrate their birthday on the day they were born, but celebrated later or earlier. Much simpler than having Mom giving birth while crossing the International Date Line and tossing in a Leap Year and the like. Needlessly complicated.

6. Because he was the one who put the poison in the punch. Of course he wouldn't drink any *after* he poisoned it. Who goes to the effort of making poison ice cubes, except Bond villains and those bad guys in the "Encyclopedia Brown" mystery stories we read in elementary school?

8. Because they were adopted. It's a coincidence they were born on the same exact day. OK, so Occam's Razor could be applied equally to both solutions...

Once Again About Judgement - A Deep Thought

Judgement means a stale state of mind. And mind always wants judgement,because to be in a process is always hazardous and uncomfortable.

This story happened in the days of Lao Tzu in China, and Lao Tzu loved it very much:

There was an old man in a village, very poor, but even kings were jealous of him because he had a beautiful white horse. Kings offered fabulous prizes for the horse, but the man would say, "This horse is not a horse to me, he is a person. And how can you sell a person, a friend?" The man was poor, but he never sold the horse.

One morning he found that the horse was not in the stable. The whole village gathered and said, "You foolish old man! We knew that someday the horse would be stolen. It would have been better to sell it. What a misfortune!"

The old man said, "Don't go so far as to say that. Simply say that the horse is not in the stable. This is the fact; everything else is judgement. Whether it is a misfortune or a blessing I don't know, because this is just a fragment. Who knows what is going to follow it?"


People laughed at the old man. They had always known he was a little crazy. But after fifteen days, suddenly one night the horse returned. He had not been stolen, he had escaped into the wild. And not only that he had brought a dozen wild horses with him.

Again the people gathered and they said, "Old man, you were right. This was not a misfortune, it has indeed proved to be a blessing."

The old man said, "Again you are going too far. Just say that the horse is back...who knows whether it is a blessing or not?" It is only a fragment. You read a single word in a sentence - how can you judge the whole book?"

This time the people could not say much, but inside they knew that he was wrong. Twelve beautiful horses had come.

The old man had an only son who started to train the horses. Just a week later he fell from a horse and his legs were broken. The people gathered again and again they judged. They said, "Again you proved right! It was a misfortune. your only son has lost the use of his legs, and in your old age he was your only support. Now you are poorer than ever."

The old man said, "You are obsessed with judgement. Don't go that far. Say only that my son had broken his legs. Life comes in fragments and more is never given to you."

It happened that after a few weeks the country went to war, and all the young men of the town were forcibly taken for the military. Only the old man's son was left because he was crippled. The whole town was crying and weeping, because it was a losing fight and they knew that most of the young people would never come back. They came to the old man and they said, "You were right, old man - this has proved a blessing. maybe your son is crippled, but he is still with you. Our sons are gone forever."

The old man said again, "You go on and on judging. Nobody knows! Only say this, that your sons have been forced to enter the army and my son has not been forced. But only God, the total, knows whether it is a blessing or a misfortune."

Judge not, otherwise you will never become one with the total. With fragments you will be obsessed, with small things you will jump to conclusions. Once you judge you have stopped growing. Judgement means a stale state of mind. And mind always wants judgement, because to be in a process is always hazardous and uncomfortable.

In fact the journey never ends. One path ends, another begins: one door closes, another opens. You reach a peak; a higher peak is always there. God is an endless journey. Only those who are so courageous that they don't bother about the goal but are content with the journey, content to just live in the moment and grow into it, only those are able to walk in the total.