Cultivating Mars

                Here's an idea, there is all this activity to investigate mars looking for life on the planet. Why don't we take life to mars? We could make progress in establishing a habit by bringing seeds of plants that are very hardy here on earth. My idea would be to bring the seeds of the hardy mesquite bush to the red planet. We have all this technology to genetically engineer things, why couldn't we engineer mesquite bush seeds to grow on mars. There thousands of plants here on earth that grow wild without any help from humans. I know this may be a long shot, but after watching some shows on YouTube about finding life on mars I got to thinking why can't we just take life to mars and let it grow and take over on its own and the plants would create an atmosphere that would allow eventual human habitation on mars. All the people out there that believe in evolution should also believe that life here on earth can grow and evolve to survive on the surface of mars. It only makes since then you would have an opportunity to prove that life does evolve no matter what kind of conditions. Really I thought this was such a good idea I had to blog about it. Just think a bunch of plants that we call weeds being genetically altered to grow on the conditions of mars then they grow "like weeds" which is what they are and they cultivate the planet for us. We don't even need to send in humans to do the gardening because the plants will grow on their own and all we have to do is wait for it to take over the planet, establish and atmosphere and when it is done then we send in humans to inhabit the land. I know this might be nothing more than science fiction but I still thought it was an idea that I must share. Knowing that I will never get in contact with scientists from NASA or anything I can still blog my ideas after all this is my blog so I can post anything I want to. Just think of the possibilities!

New Experiences

          Everything we do in life has rewards and set backs. Just because you think you should go in one direction, but then the project or goal you had in mind takes a different path doesn't mean you actually lost out. No in fact, it is actually a learning experience that you will be able to use later on in life or in fact, allow you to see things in a better light and keep things in perspective. So do not be worried if the thing you tried to do seemed to be up your alley but you later find out that it wasn't really right for you. Just chalk it up as a learning experience and keep your head held high and know that you can accomplish anything that you set your mind too. It is just not always the thing that is actually any good for you. Either at this moment or even ever. Life has a way of working itself out. You don't necessarily need to get upset about it just know that you did your best despite all odds, you took a chance,put yourself out there and learned a little something about something and you are better for having at least attempted something than not have done anything at all and left your dreams and ambitions lying on the floor never to be used or thought of ever again.

TIME Explains: The Battle for the Penny

Here is an excellent example of strategy in action. Do we keep making and using the penny even though it makes no economical sense or do we as a nation decide to stop production on the penny and transfer over to an economic system that is based on a factor of 5 cents rather than 1 cent.

      
                                                            

Hello again everybody!
                   I just want to thank everyone that visits my blog. I know this is time spent that you could be using to do other things, which is why I try to keep posting interesting topics. As well as going to college full-time I try to write about topics about strategy. I believe this is an area in which can benefit people from all walks of life. Strategy doesn't necessarily have to be about war time strategies like I believe most people to think of when they hear the term strategy. It can range from anywhere to clipping coupons to save money or how you are going to approach the way you will design and build your house, not only how it will look but how long you want it to take and also how you will pay for it. What I am saying is that I think if we each take some joy in the daily decisions that we make then it can enrich our lives for the better. If anyone has some ideas on what kind of topic you would like to see discussed. Then by all means feel free to leave a comment and I will try my best to write about it. I am not a professional writer by all means but everyone has to start somewhere, so again by all means please leave some feedback.
                      
                                  Your friend,
                                                      The Strategist

Simplifying – Why It Doesn’t Work

Simplifying – Why It Doesn’t Work?

         You have probably heard the term “KISS”, Keep It Simple Stupid. There are a number of reasons why you shouldn’t simplify. For the most part, let me just go on a rant here, who came up with that? Everyone uses this term as if it is a plausible one size fits all solution to everything it is you are doing coming from someone who does not know your goals or objective. For as long as I have been alive everyone has always told me “Keep It Simple Stupid”, really? There are two sides to every story, if there is a simple side to things, then what about the more complex side of things? Simply put, not everything is going to be solved with a simple solution. I feel that making things simple has not gotten us anywhere. Trying to pigeon hole a horse into a knot hole of a tree just doesn’t work. Now I am not saying to make things so complex you loose yourself in the workings of your design, but please don’t dumb down your design for the sake of simplicity. Saying things are simple means they lack sophistication and that things need to be simpler because you just couldn’t understand the complexity of the situation. I for one am not a person that can only understand the simple things and I do not imagine that you could only understand the simple things either. Whoever coined the phrase “Keep It Simple Stupid” was probably a person who had no faith in human kind whatsoever. Like I said, “not everything is as simple as they try to make it out to be. I also feel those that say “Keep It Simple Stupid” have not given any thought at all to what is really going on. Why should we as Americans have to put up with the notion that we are incapable of complex thought and that the mere sight of something complex should repulse us? We are given a brain for a reason, if you want to out think your opponent, then you better start thinking a little more complex, because 9 times out of 10, your opponent is going to be thinking simpler than you because this phenomena is so integrated into our society that anyone who does not think strategically will be trying to do things in the simplest fashion they can think of, leaving themselves open to being figured out as they are not doing much because “ITS SIMPLE”.

The Basics: Time Duration

            On my continuation of the basics of strategy, another part in the grand scheme of things is the Time Factor.

           What does time have to do with a good strategy? Well, if you think about it, time has a lot to contribute to a well developed strategy. I like to think of time in the aspect of duration. Duration meaning how long will something be done in your overall strategy. Now that can be taken in to account for 5 seconds, 5 hours, 5 days, or 5 years. When you implement, you have to decide how long will you keep committed to a strategy before you decide to toss it out. I highly recommend that you keep to a strategy for a longer period of time then you would initially decide to do it for. The reasons being it is really difficult to design a strategy when you are tossing it out for another strategy all the time. For one, you have not given the idea long enough time to be tested and to have all the bugs worked out of it. I use to play a game called “Magic The Gathering” and it was a card game where you had to make a “deck” with spells and creatures in it to defeat your opponent with. My friends and I coined the term “tweaking your deck” meaning when you create your deck you have to play with that deck for many games to work out the usefulness of that deck and to fix minor errors of the functionality of your deck as most of the major problems of design of the function of your deck was worked out in the initial stages of designing it.  If you are constantly changing strategies for something else I guarantee you will succumb to the strategy of someone who has tested their strategy, developed it, and are masters of executing their strategy as you will have a design that is green and you will be more likely to abandon your strategy at the first sign of seeing your design fail.

        Overall, it is best to develop your strategies to your own unique style of doing things. This will not only make it more fun for you but will allow you to customize your design to the standards that are unique to yourself, your environment, and to your situation. Keep to your guns, rather then develop the habit of coming up with strategy after strategy and seeing nothing work. Do the work in advance so when the proverbial shit hits the fan you will not only have a rain suit on you will have a shower nearby to wash the mess of with while everyone else will be staring at the fan not knowing what to do.  

Inventory of the Parts

        

        To do a comprehensive assessment of your unit I recommend doing three things: take an inventory of the parts, with your inventory list made pair each part with another part and see how each part interacts with each other, and defined the goal of the unit and see what each part needs or doesn’t need to do in order to get the goal accomplished.

         First, I recommend taking an inventory of the parts of the unit.  This can be done by a simply listing some or all of the different parts of the whole. For example, I will use the whole: being a football team and the parts: the individual positions of the players. Using this example, we can list some of the positions of a football team has, which includes: quarterback, wide receiver, kicker and cheerleader.  You’ll see why I included cheerleaders into the mix later on. With the list made the next step would be to define what each position does. You don’t just have to use people and their positions, you can also use part of a machine, device, anything that has different working parts. To define what each position does simply do some research on it, or if it is a team, or device you’re familiar with just go by each part and give a brief description of what each part does or is used for. You can go into as much detail as you would like, but for the sake of time I will write some brief descriptions of the parts I used in the example.  I got the descriptions off of livestrong.com

      

      Quarterback: the quarterback is the backbone of the offense. His job is typically to receive the ball after it is hiked and initiate the offensive play.  He does this by either handing the ball off to the running back or passing the ball to wide receiver, tight end or eligible receiver. On some plays, the quarterback also might opt to run with the ball. 

     Wide receiver: the wide receiver’s main job is to shake off his defender, and get open for a pass from the quarterback. Wide receivers open up the field on running plays by getting their defensive opponent downfield so the running back as a clear path. 

     Kickers: kickers are responsible for kicking field goals when the team is in a range, as well as kicking extra points after touchdowns. They also kick the ball off to start the game or the second half, and after the team scores. 

     Cheerleader: (according to jobdescriptions.com) NFL cheerleaders are a group of girls were members of a professional NFL cheerleading league. They lead the crowd to create a happy and cheerful atmosphere of the football game. Their job consists of a time for practice, of dance routines, and stunts, training camps, games, photo shoots, appearances, and charity events. 

     Again a brief description or a more detailed description will suffice.  It’s your decision on how much information you want or will need at this step. 

        Secondly, the next step after taking inventory the parts to pair up each part with another part and see how each pair interacts with each other. On keeping with the football example we can use a variety of combinations such as: quarterback/wide receiver, wide receiver/kicker, quarterback/cheerleader or any combination of these parts would do.  Once you have described each part, now with some of them pair together you can start to get a better picture of how everything operates.  I’ll start with the pair of quarterback/wide receiver. We see how these two parts interact with each other; the quarterback gets the ball an in turn throws it to the wide receiver. It is the job of the wide receiver to get away from his defender so that he can make a play by catching a thrown ball from the quarterback. What this shows is a more in-depth picture of what each part does.  We know what the two parts will do in the whole of the football team, this one is pretty obvious, but how about something like a quarterback/cheerleader. We know one job of the cheerleaders to create a happy and cheerful atmosphere for the crowds, but how about a less obvious aspect of this relationship. The quarterback is a prestigious position to play as it is the backbone of the offenses and actually is a star anyways, how about paring the quarterback with the cheerleader for a photo shoot to promote the game or the team.  When people think about football they usually just think of the game time, they don’t think about the public relations part of the game.  Would you rather be the team that spends some effort in PR to get the fans excited and promote your team and have a more loyal fans then your opponent?  This would be a more specialized part in the machinery of football. Now, there’s always a flaw if you do not take note of all the parts. Say, you could have the best PR in the NFL, but your kickers and wide receivers could be the worst. This leads us into the last step in this assessment of the parts. 

         The last step is to define the goal of the group and see what each part needs to do in order to get the goal done. By having paired up different parts of the whole, we get an idea of how each one interacts with each other.  The last step is to define the goal or object you’re trying to accomplish, keeping within the football theme, a major goal in football is to make a touchdown.  Starting with the quarterback and wide receiver, we know we need to get them downfield, or throw a long pass, or rush the ball downfield. We already have an idea of what needs to be done. Now if we want to broaden our perspective of things how can the kickers help to accomplish this? Or even the cheerleaders? What this step does is take into account some or all the parts working with each other to accomplish a task or goal. The kickers can help by getting the ball as far down field as possible and help get the quarterback and receivers downfield.  I didn’t have the defense in this assessment, but depending on how much time you want to spend on your assessment is up to you.  For my own time sake I just listed some of the offense and public relations aspects of the football team. There is still the coaching aspect and individual player’s skills that come into play, but the beauty of this system is you can decide how much “magnification of the microscope” you want to use, if you just want to do a brief quick assessment or a lengthy and detailed assessment again it’s up to you. 

      With the assessment we went over how to take inventory of the parts of your unit, putting into list of what you have to work with, to pair up the parts of the unit you do have with another part to see how each unit interacts with the other, to get a better picture of how each part corresponds with another, and you find the goal of the group as a whole and see what each part needs to do in order to get the goal done. Deciding how much work you want to put into this is up to you, making this system quite versatile when you are making plans and seeing where you stand.  I believe being comprehensive in your assessment will give you a leg up on the competition.