The Two Hospital Patients

Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room. One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour each afternoon to help drain the fluid from his lungs. His bed was next to the room’s only window. The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back. The men talked for hours on end. They spoke of their wives and families, their homes, their jobs, their involvement in the military service, where they had been on holiday.

And every afternoon when the man in the bed by the window could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see outside the window. The man in the other bed began to live for those one-hour periods where his world would be broadened and enlivened by all the activity and colour of the world outside.

The window overlooked a park with a lovely lake. Ducks and swans played on the water while children sailed their model boats. Young lovers walked arm in arm amidst flowers of every colour of the rainbow. Grand old trees graced the landscape and a fine view of the city skyline could be seen in the distance.

As the man by the window described all this in exquisite detail, the man on the other side of the room would close his eyes and imagine the picturesque scene.

One warm afternoon the man by the window described a parade passing by. Although the other man couldn’t hear the band – he could see it in his mind’s eye as the gentleman by the window portrayed it with descriptive words. Days and weeks passed.

One morning, the day nurse arrived to bring water for their baths only to find the lifeless body of the man by the window, who had died peacefully in his sleep. She was saddened and called the hospital attendants to take the body away. As soon as it seemed appropriate, the other man asked if he could be moved next to the window. The nurse was happy to make the switch and, after making sure he was comfortable, she left him alone. Slowly, painfully, he propped himself up on one elbow to take his first look at the world outside. Finally, he would have the joy of seeing it for himself. He strained to slowly turn to look out the window beside the bed.

It faced a blank wall. The man asked the nurse what could have compelled his deceased roommate who had described such wonderful things outside this window. The nurse responded that the man was blind and could not even see the wall. She said, “Perhaps he just wanted to encourage you.”

The Last Ride

I arrived at the address and honked the horn. After waiting a few minutes, I honked again. Since this was going to be my last ride of my shift, I thought about just driving away, but instead I put the car in park and walked up to the door and knocked.

‘Just a minute’, answered a frail, elderly voice. I could hear something being dragged across the floor. After a long pause, the door opened. A small woman in her 90s stood before me. She was wearing a print dress and a pillbox hat with a veil pinned on it, like somebody out of a 1940s movie. By her side was a small nylon suitcase. The apartment looked as if no one had lived in it for years. All the furniture was covered with sheets. There were no clocks on the walls, no knickknacks or utensils on the counters. In the corner was a cardboard box filled with photos and glassware.

‘Would you carry my bag out to the car?’ she said. I took the suitcase to the cab, then returned to assist the woman. She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the curb. She kept thanking me for my kindness. ‘It’s nothing’, I told her. ‘I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother to be treated.’ ‘Oh, you’re such a good boy’, she said.

When we got in the cab, she gave me an address and then asked, ‘Could you drive through downtown?’ ‘It’s not the shortest way’,’ I answered quickly. ‘Oh, I don’t mind,’ she said. ‘I’m in no hurry. I’m on my way to a hospice.’ I looked in the rear-view mirror. Her eyes were glistening. ‘I don’t have any family left’, she continued in a soft voice. ‘The doctor says I don’t have very long.’ I quietly reached over and shut off the meter.

‘What route would you like me to take?’ I asked. For the next two hours, we drove through the city. She showed me the building where she had once worked as an elevator operator. We drove through the neighborhood where she and her husband had lived when they were newlyweds. She had me pull up in front of a furniture warehouse that had once been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl. Sometimes she’d ask me to slow in front of a particular building or corner and would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing.

As the first hint of sun was creasing the horizon, she suddenly said, ‘I’m tired. Let’s go now’. We drove in silence to the address she had given me. It was a low building, like a small convalescent home, with a driveway that passed under a portico. Two orderlies came out to the cab as soon as we pulled up. They were solicitous and intent, watching her every move. They must have been expecting her.

I opened the trunk and took the small suitcase to the door. The woman was already seated in a wheelchair. ‘How much do I owe you?’ She asked, reaching into her purse. ‘Nothing’, I said ‘You have to make a living’, she answered. ‘There are other passengers’, I responded. Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug. She held onto me tightly. ‘You gave an old woman a little moment of joy’, she said. ‘Thank you.’ I squeezed her hand, and then walked into the dim morning light.

Behind me, a door shut. It was the sound of the closing of a life. I didn’t pick up any more passengers that shift. I drove aimlessly lost in thought. For the rest of that day, I could hardly talk. What if that woman had gotten an angry driver, or one who was impatient to end his shift? What if I had refused to take the run, or had honked once, then driven away? On a quick review, I don’t think that I have done anything more important in my life. We’re conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great moments. But great moments often catch us unaware – beautifully wrapped in what others may consider a small one.

Author: New York City taxi driver

YESTERDAY, TODAY, TOMORROW

There are two days in every week we should not worry about.
Two days which should be kept free from fear and apprehension.
One of these days is yesterday with its mistakes and cares,
Its faults and blunders, Its aches and pains.
Yesterday has passed forever beyond our control.
All the money in the world cannot bring back yesterday.
We cannot undo a single act we performed.
We cannot erase a single word we said. Yesterday is gone.
The other day we should not worry about is tomorrow.
With its possible adversities, its burdens,
its large promise and poor performance.
Tomorrow is also beyond our immediate control.
Tomorrow’s Sun will rise, either in splendor or behind a mask of clouds,but it will rise.
Until it does, we have no stake in tomorrow, for it is yet unborn.
This just leaves only one day . . . Today.
Any person can fight the battles of just one day.
It is only when you and I add the burdens of those two awful eternities –
yesterday and tomorrow that we break down.
It is not the experience of today that drives people mad.
It is the remorse or bitterness for something which happened yesterday and the dread of what tomorrow may bring.
Let us therefore live but one day at a time.
~ Author Unknown ~
(Possible author Jennifer Kritsch)

HOW TO FIX OPERATING SYSTEM WITH COMPRESSED BOOT MANAGER PROBLEM

Insert the installation DVD in your system and start the PC.Click on repair, Click on load driver. Go to computer, right click on the partition your installation previously compressed, click on properties. Then uncheck Compress drive to increase space available.close all windows to restart the computer.

THE POSSIBLE OUTCOME OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE INVENTION TO HUMAN RACE

The invention of Artificial intelligence will render assistance to humans in respect to our daily activities by understanding human desires, they can assist in different ways like driving peoples cars etc, but something that has not been considered is the tendency of these robots becoming uncontrollable then this will pose a lot of threat to the human race. Stephen Hawking the prominent physicist, Elon Musk the billionaire founder of SpaceX and Tesla Motors along with dozens of other top scientists and technology leaders have signed a letter warning of the potential dangers of developing artificial intelligence (AI).

The letter indicated the benefits of AI, but also warns of the possible risks.

“Because of the great potential of AI, it is important to research how to reap its benefits while avoiding potential pitfalls. In other words, the letter states, “Our AI systems must do what we want them to do”. From speech recognition to self-driving vehicles, progress in AI is likely to have an increasing impact on humanity, the letter states. “The potential benefits are huge … The eradication of disease and poverty are not unfathomable,” the letter specified.

The statement goes on to stress that research in AI should focus not only on making AI more capable, but also on its benefits to society.

Some of the issues considered is the handling of automatic weapons that might kill indiscriminately, the liabilities of automatically driven cars and the prospect of losing control of AI systems so that they no longer align with human wishes, were among the concerns raised in the letter that signees said deserve further research.

It’s not the first time Hawking, Musk and others have warned about the dangers of artificial intelligence. In December 2014, Hawking said the development of AI could “spell the end of the human race.”

GIVE IT A TRY

In June 1985, two British mountaineers Joe Simpson and Simon Yates made the first-ever climb of the West Face of the 21,000 foot snow-covered Siula Grande mountain in Peru. It was an exceptionally tough assault – but nothing compared to what was to come. Early in the descent, Simpson fell and smashed his right knee. Yates could have abandoned him but managed to find a way of lowering him down the mountain in a series of difficult drops blinded by snow and cold. Then Simpson fell into a crevasse and Yates eventually had no choice but to cut the rope, utterly convinced that his friend was now dead.

In his subsequent book on the climb entitled “Touching The Void”, Joe Simpson wrote:

“As I gazed at the distant moraines, I knew that I must at least try. I would probably die out there amid those boulders. The thought didn’t alarm me. It seemed reasonable, matter-of-fact. That was how it was. I could aim for something. If I died, well, that wasn’t so surprising, but I wouldn’t have just waited for it to happen. The horror of dying no longer affected me as it had in the crevasse. I now had the chance to confront it and struggle against it. It wasn’t a bleak dark terror any more, just fact, like my broken leg and frostbitten fingers, and I couldn’t be afraid of things like that. My leg would hurt when I fell and when I couldn’t get up I would die.”

The survival of Yates himself was extraordinary. That Simpson somehow found a way of climbing out of the crevasse after 12 hours and then literally crawled and dragged himself six miles back to camp, going three days and nights without food or drink, losing three stone, and contracting ketoacidosis in the process, would be the stuff of heroic fiction if it was not so true. Indeed, six operations and two years later, he was even back climbing. All because, against all the odds, he tried …

Source: “Touching The Void” by Joe Simpson

THE 10 MOST POPULAR GADGETS IN NIGERIA FOR THE YEAR 2014

A research was carried out towards the end of 2014 by Google to take into record the most searched topics on its search engine world wide

It was observed that gadgets lovers in Nigeria took to Google to search for their favourite devices, and of course, Apple’s iPhone 6 held the number one spot on the top ten list.

Infinix Zero appears to be attracting people’s attention as it comes third on the list ahead of other popular devices such as Samsung Galaxy S5, Blackberry Z3 etc.

Techno device turned out to be one of the most outstanding devices on the top 10 list as it had three of its brands present on the list. Below is the list of the top 10 most searched gadgets in Nigeria for the year 2014.

1. iPhone 6
2. Nokia X
3. Infinix Zero
4. Samsung Galaxy S5
5. Tecno R7
6. Nokia XL
7. Tecno P5
8. Blackberry Z3
9. Tecno Phantom Z
10. iPhone 5S

EVERYBODY NEEDS A HELPING HAND

A mother, wishing to encourage her son’s progress at the piano, bought tickets to a performance by the great Polish pianist Ignace Paderewski. When the evening arrived, they found their seats near the front of the concert hall and eyed the majestic Steinway waiting on the stage. Soon the mother found a friend to talk to, and the boy slipped away.

At eight o’clock, the lights in the auditorium began to dim, the spotlights came on, and only then did they notice the boy – up on the piano bench, innocently picking out “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” His mother gasped in shock and embarrassment but, before she could retrieve her son, the master himself appeared on the stage and quickly moved to the keyboard.

He whispered gently to the boy, “Don’t quit. Keep playing.” Leaning over, Paderewski reached down with his left hand and began filling in the bass part. Soon his right arm reached around the other side and improvised a delightful obligato. Together, the old master and the young novice held the crowd mesmerized with their blended and beautiful music.

In all our lives, we receive helping hands – some we notice, some we don’t. Equally we ourselves have countless opportunites to provide helping hands – sometimes we would like our assistance to be noticed, sometimes we don’t. Little of what we all achieve is without learning from others and without support from others and what we receive we should hand out.

CHAT APPS GETTING TO THE LEVEL OF SOCIAL MEDIA FOR BRANDS

A number of top pundits are predicting that messaging apps will become ‘the new social media’ in 2015, and here’s some evidence to support that theory from Line, the chat app from Japan with over 500 million registered users and 170 million monthly actives.

Former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney released a surprise collaboration with Kanye West on New Year’s Eve and I was particularly intrigued to observe how the British musician’s team promoted it online.

McCartney is popular on social media and was one of the first global ‘brands’ to jump aboard Line, which has dedicated a large part of its business to connecting companies with users for a fee.

His Facebook Page is closing in on 6.2 million likes, he has 2.17 million Twitter followers and (just) 187,000 followers on Instagram. But top billing is reserved for Line — where he has more than 10 million followers thanks to clever marketing and the use of stickers, which were offered free to fans who followed his account.

So how did he get on with engagement?

Sir Paul’s Social Media Scorecard

• Facebook: 14,334 likes and 1,829 shares

• Instagram (which did not contain a link to the Soundcloud track): 15,600 likes

• Line: 1,074 likes and 31 shares on public post, and push notifications to 10 million-plus fans

• Twitter: the @paulmccartney account retweeted Kanye West’s tweet, but only after his team deleted the tweet promoting the collaboration.

It isn’t clear why the tweet was deleted — perhaps it didn’t generate enough interest or McCartney’s team was happier to promote West’s tweet — but the overall engagement numbers are interesting.

Instagram comes out top in terms of sheer likes — despite a far smaller fan base. While the Instagram post makes mention that the song is available on McCartney’s website there is no URL so just a small fraction of those ‘likers’ may have actually taken action and listened to the song.

Facebook almost certainly got more attention — with traffic to Soundcloud, iTunes and its own video player — but the problem with posting updates to the social network is that Facebook’s own algorithm dictates just how many of McCartney’s fans will have seen it. There’s no way that it got served to all 6.2 million fans’ timelines unless McCartney’s team bought Facebook ad space.

The Power Of The Push Notification

Line does things differently, and McCartney’s post went out to his fans in two ways — via a public post and private chats.

The figures presented above are from the post that McCartney’s account made to its Timeline, which — as the name suggests — is a Facebook-like chronological feed of public posts available within a dedicated menu inside the Line app. There, users see all updates from their Line friends and ‘official’ (corporate) accounts — like McCartney’s — which they have chosen to follow.

Line’s Timeline is governed entirely by each user without an algorithm, they only see items from people they follow and they can also block out accounts they wish to ignore. There is no way a brand can pay to plant their messages there, such as they can do on Facebook, Twitter and (now) Instagram.

But, most importantly, McCartney’s account also sent private chat messages to each of its 10 million-plus followers on Line. There is no metric to quantify the engagement of that action, but the fact that most of those fans will have gotten a push notification with the message and link to Soundcloud (just like an SMS) gives you an idea that it might well have been hugely effective.

Indeed, on Line, the Timeline post is just a bonus. Line said in 2013 that one-third of its registered users open their Timeline each month, and gauging the total reach of an official account on Line is impossible.

Writing for The Next Web back in 2013, I pointed out that chat apps like Line are a genuine threat to Twitter when it comes to advertising cash, and the Japanese company’s December acquisition of Microsoft’s MixRadio service has the potential to supercharge its appeal to artists and musicians worldwide once its proposed music streaming service goes live worldwide.

But Line isn’t the only chat app that is rivaling social networks. WeChat is becoming the de factor mobile internet in China — it is a must for any brands seeking to reach consumers there — while the same can be said of Kakao Talk in Korea, which is installed on over 90 percent of the country’s smartphones and also offers accounts for brands.

The appeal of chat apps for brands and advertisers won’t just be an Asian phenomenon in 2015, however.

Kik, an app that claims to have 80 percent of American’s youth on its service, recently let brands on to its platform, Snapchat is planning an Asia-style platform (and it just raised a truck load of cash). Even also-run Tango linked up with Spotify and offers a timeline-feature, while Rakuten-owned Viber introduced a platform for high-profile users in November.

And Facebook?

Facebook Messenger is a notable absentee from this list, but perhaps not for long. David Marcus — the former PayPal CEO who heads up Facebook’s messaging business — told Wired that he wants to “reinvent messaging between people and businesses.”

That will almost certainly mean a system just like Line’s, which allows companies to pay for an account which users can subscribe to for updates. A premium tier on Line grants companies support for two-way conversations, thus turning them into customer sales representatives, and Facebook may adopt that too.

As for WhatsApp, the chat app Facebook bought for $19 billion, it offers an SMS replacement service rather than a platform and its founders seem to have no plan to change that.

Asia’s messaging apps have been around longer, and thus most have more mature business models that generate income by connecting brands with consumers, in addition to other non-marketing revenue streams such as games and stickers.

If 2014 was the year that the West wised up to the potential of messaging apps, then 2015 is the year that they’ll get smart and make money from them.

Source: By Jon Russell