Columns
Win-Win, Win-Lose, Which One Would You Choose?
Column by Elena Yang
In today’s space, I’d like to go a bit deeper on competition, a sub-heading from the previous summary of The Knowing-Doing Gap.
This is a concept most Americans embrace without question; it is so taken for granted in this society that most may even consider it as part of human nature.
But there are many other cultures that emphasize cooperation much more (and therefore feel cooperation is natural), enough so that the notion that competition is part of human nature is suspect.
Perhaps a more pertinent framework is to understand when and where to promote competition. Read More
Retirement Planning: A Single Point of Failure
Retirement Planning: A Single Point of Failure
A single point of failure is defined as “a potential risk posed by a flaw in the decision, implementation or configuration of a circuit or system in which one fault or malfunction causes an entire system to stop operating.”
In relation to retirement planning, the goal is to minimize the possible effects of a single point of failure (SPOF) by addressing the various expenses, yield and risks of the ideal mix of income producing assets.
A potential SPOF for many retired Americans is the Social Security (SS) system. Today, for more Read More
Food on the Hill: Bread Pudding
Quemazon Nature Trail: Aug. 25, 2012
PAJARITO RAMBLER…
Column by Nina Thayer
The recent rains have brought a wealth of wildflowers to the Pajarito Plateau including the Quemazon Nature Trail, where I hiked recently.
Quemazon, which is a local Spanish word for “burned”, is indeed that. The entire mountainside was consumed with crown fire in the Cerro Grande Wildfire 12 years ago.
The nature trail was completely restored in the years after the fire by more than 250 Mountain School students and reopened by the County in 2004.
The trailhead is located off of Trinity Drive in the Western Area. Bear left to remain on Trinity Read More
Know Your Metabolism
Column by Kent Pegg
One of the key factors to weight loss and weight management is your metabolism. Metabolism is a term that refers to how your body transforms the calories in the food you eat into energy.
The food is broken down into sugars and amino acids that the body then has available for use as energy. The energy is then either used or it is stored as muscle or fat.
If you want to lose weight and keep the weight off, one important thing to do is to know your metabolic rate. Your metabolic rate is the number of calories your body burns in the course of a day.
To accurately determine your metabolic rate, Read More
Acting on Knowledge: Why is it so hard? Part 1
Column by Elena Yang
Jeffrey Pfeffer & Robert Sutton’s “The Knowing-Doing Gap: How smart companies turn knowledge into action” is an easy-to-read book, like many of their other collaborative works.
This is not a conventional book review but rather my attempt to capture some important points and use them to launch some stories and reflections.
In today’s space, I will delineate three difficulties in acting on knowledge. I will finish the remaining two more obstacles and a few recommendations next week.
As Pfeffer & Sutton point out, given the plethora of business books published every Read More
The PEEC Amateur Naturalist: Photographing Hummingbirds
Male hummingbirds from left, a Black-Chinned, Calliope and Rufous Hummingbirds. Photo by Bob Walker
Forty-eight species of hummingbirds have been identified on the North American continent. Of these, at least 17 species have been reported in New Mexico.
Another 28 species are identified as living in Mexico, but New Mexico is adjacent to it. Could some illegal alien species occasionally fly north to Los Alamos? If additional species from Mexico start to appear, is this an indication Read More
Is It Really Cheating If You Don’t Get Caught?
Column: On the Mesa Facing North by Greg Kendall
Today, Lance Armstrong threw in the towel in his fight to clear his name in the ongoing Tour De France doping scandals. Armstrong issued a statement that has been published in an earlier Los Alamos Daily Post story (see link below.)
In his statement, Armstrong discusses how “enough is enough” after dealing with claims that he cheated and had an unfair advantage in winning his seven Tours since 1999.
As I read through his statement, I kept looking for one sentence from Armstrong, “I never used performance enhancing drugs Read More
The Charter Review Committee … How it All Got Started
With the election on the horizon, most are aware of the fact that there will be four questions on the ballot that relate to potential changes to the Charter for the County of Los Alamos, New Mexico.
Specifically, the questions for consideration for the November 2012 election deal with the provisions for Initiative, Referendum and Recall.
I believe it would be helpful to provide a little background on why the Charter Review Committee was formed and outline exactly what the Council tasked the Committee to do.
In 2009, amid an environment