...36.000 words in the english language-not one describes da feeling..Porsche..

Sime Darby Auto Performance, local guardian of the Porsche brand, launched the new Cayman R yesterday at the Sepang International Circuit. The hottest Cayman was first revealed to the world at the LA show in November last year. More hardcore and uncompromising than the Cayman S, the Cayman R loses weight, adds power, and takes on a different character from the S.
The 3.4-litre flat six engine from the Cayman S gains 10 horses to make 330 hp in the R, while torque remains at 370 Nm. The redline for this water-cooled, direct injection naturally aspirated powerplant is 7,500 rpm, which one will reach easily while rowing through the seven-speed dual-clutch PDK gearbox. SDAP (a yummy acronym!) says that they will forward customer orders for the six-speed manual to Germany, if they insist on self swapping.

We don’t think many would want to do so, as the PDK version is faster to 100 km/h and more fuel efficient than the manual. The century sprint is dispatched in 4.9 seconds on to a 280 km/h top speed. Combined fuel consumption is 9.3 litres per 100 km, or 10.75 km/l. Compare this to the manual’s 5.0 sec and 9.7 litres per 100 km.
The other main point is weight reduction. The Cayman R uses aluminium doors (15 kg saved) and special seats (shells made of glass and CFRP, 12 kg saved), and Porsche goes to the extent of replacing the inside door handles with fabric straps. The 19in wheels are the lightest Porsche has, and a complete set of four weighs only 40 kg.

In Europe, one can have the R without air con and radio for max weight savings, but these are essentials here, even on a car like this, so SDAP ordered them. Unladen weight is 1,295 kg. If money isn’t an issue, the RM32k optional Porsche Ceramic Composite Brakes (PCCB) can add stopping power and shave a further 15 kg off the weight. One can also order a lithium ion battery in place of the normal lead acid battery – this saves 14 kg.
From the outside, the Cayman R can be spotted via its signature “Peridot” colour. But if it’s not in that shade of green, one can look out for the fixed rear spoiler, “PORSCHE” lettering along the doors, black framed headlights and a body that’s lower by 20 mm over the S. The latter is part of the sports chassis which also includes more rigid springs, bespoke anti roll bars, stiffer dampers, wider tracks (+4 mm front, +2 mm rear) and a standard rear differential lock.

A larger negative camber has also been set for both axles to increase directional stability. Also, as Stuttgart set out to build a “purer” sports car, the R cannot be specified with PASM electronically controlled dampers.
At the launch, Porsche allowed journos a chance to sample their new baby on Sepang tarmac. There was a long queue with only one running unit, but yours truly managed to squeeze in one lap before they closed shop. Read our brief impressions of the Cayman R and view the gallery after the jump.

Sime Darby Auto Performance chose Sepang as the launch venue for the Cayman R, which is very appropriate, as full attack in the safe confines of a circuit gave us a chance to explore the limits of the sports car, without the risks of public roads. However, this also means that we have no idea how the R will fare on our less than smooth roads.
The launch coincided with Porsche Driving Experience, a driver training programme for customers and the media. This means that besides the Cayman R, other Porsches such as the Cayenne, Panamera, 911 GTS and Cayman/Cayman S were available for sampling.
As mentioned, there was a long line to try the Cayman R, so I took the chance to lap Sepang in the standard 2.9-litre Cayman. With “only” 265 hp and 300 Nm, some might think that the base Cayman doesn’t have enough firepower to excite, but I beg to differ. It certainly feels fast enough, and the loud flat-six soundtrack from behind the seats provide the necessary drama. And if I remember correctly, the engine sound is much more audible here than in the 911.

Smiles didn’t fade after the initial blast out of the pit lane. Snaking through turns 1 and 2, the Cayman’s nose was extremely easy to point around, feeling almost weightless. No engine up front, and the wheels don’t need to channel power to the road, hence the purity. This lithe, agile feel was a constant companion in my two laps, and the cabin feels like the pivot point of the car – you can easily feel it adjust based on throttle inputs.
The Cayman is fun, but I found it to be quite forgiving as well, great for non pros like yours truly. In the fast sweeping bends of 5 and 6, leaning on the final ounces of grip, I backed off the throttle too abruptly and immediately realised my mistake, but instead of snapping us into the gravel, the Cayman wobbled a bit before carrying on. By the way, PSM isn’t the most strict nanny around and some innocent fun is allowed.

The PDK with paddle shifts worked perfectly. For those thinking Golf GTI, the overlapping here is not as seamless, but for the better, as the kickback and “mini bomb sound” during full bore shifts complemented the howling flat six well. The gravelly crescendo at the top 2,000 rpm is quite addictive, and you’ll want to go there in every gear. Special mention to the brakes as well; their stopping power gave us confidence to spend as much time on the throttle as possible. They also withstand heavy duty use very well.
The Cayman R’s more focused brief is apparent the minute one steps in. I’m now surrounded by dark alcantara instead of tan leather, and I reached for the seat height and rake adjuster, only to find none – the seats are fixed backed items. They hold very tightly, and the seating position is perfect for serious driving.
The previously mentioned engine sound is significantly louder here, and the tone is harder edged, too. It also feels a lot faster than the base Cayman, although the difference would have been smaller if I had previously tried a Cayman S instead. The steering remains natural and feelsome, but the R corners much flatter. There’s more grip, translating to higher cornering speeds, and one can power out of corners earlier as well.

It would have been better if we got to try the Cayman S beforehand, but I suspect that while the noticeable gap would have been smaller, it would still be substantial enough to put the Cayman R a notch above. The R is a serious machine that feels right at home on the track, and we hope that the 20 to 25 buyers SDAP wants to find this year will give it the occasional circuit exercise it deserves.

Top Ten Conspiracy Theories..

Many conspiracy theories have been presented concerning the September 11, 2001 attacks, many of them claiming that President George W. Bush and/or individuals in his administration knew about the attacks beforehand and purposefully allowed them to occur because the attacks would generate public support for militarization, expansion of the police state, and other intrusive foreign and domestic policies by which they would benefit.

Proponents point to the Project for the New American Century, a conservative think tank that argues for increased American global leadership, whose former members include ex-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney and several other key Bush administration figures. An 1990 report from the group stated that “some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor” would be needed to budge public opinion in their favor.

2. UFO Recovered at Roswell [Wikpedia]



The Roswell UFO Incident involved the recovery of materials near Roswell, New Mexico, USA, in July 1947, which have since become the subject of intense speculation, rumor, questioning and research. There are widely divergent views on what actually happened, and passionate debate about what evidence can be believed. The United States military maintains that what was recovered was a top-secret research balloon that had crashed.

By the early 1990s, UFO researchers such as Friedman, William Moore, Karl Pflock, and the team of Kevin Randle and Don Schmitt had interviewed several hundred people [11] who had, or claimed to have had, a connection with the events at Roswell in 1947. Additionally, hundreds of documents were obtained via Freedom of Information Act requests, as were some apparently leaked by insiders, such as the disputed “Majestic 12″ documents. Their conclusions were that at least one alien craft had crashed in the Roswell vicinity, that aliens, some possibly still alive, were recovered, and that a massive cover-up of any knowledge of the incident was put in place.

3. John F. Kennedy’s Assasination [Wikpedia]



The assassination of John F. Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, took place on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, USA at 12:30 p.m. CST (18:30 UTC). Kennedy was fatally wounded by gunshots while riding with his wife Jacqueline in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza. The official investigation by the Warren Commission was conducted over a ten-month period, and its report was published in September 1964. The Commission concluded that the assassination was carried out solely by Lee Harvey Oswald, an employee of the Texas School Book Depository in Dealey Plaza.

A number of conspiracy theories exist with regard to the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Such theories began to be generated soon after his death, and continue to be proposed today. Many of these theories propose a criminal conspiracy involving parties such as the Federal Reserve, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the KGB, the Mafia, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director J. Edgar Hoover, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Fidel Castro, George H. W. Bush, Cuban exile groups opposed to the Castro government and the military and/or government interests of the United States.

4. Global Warming is a Fraud [Wikpedia]



The suggestion of a conspiracy to promote the theory of global warming was put forward in a 1990 documentary The Greenhouse Conspiracy broadcast by Channel Four in the United Kingdom on 12 August 1990, as part of the Equinox series, which asserted that scientists critical of global warming theory were denied funding.

William Gray, phD (a pioneer in the science of hurricane forecasting) has made a list of 15 reasons for the global warming hysteria. The list includes the need to come up with an enemy after the end of the Cold War, and the desire among scientists, government leaders and environmentalists to find a political cause that would enable them to ‘organize, propagandize, force conformity and exercise political influence. Big world government could best lead (and control) us to a better world!’ In this article, Gray also cites the ascendancy of Al Gore to the vice presidency as the start of his problems with federal funding. According to him, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration stopped giving him research grants, and so did NASA.

5. Princess Diana was Murdered by the Royal Family [Wikpedia]



In 1997, Princess Diana (Princess of Wales) and Dodi Fayed (son of Mohamed Fayed, owner of the Ritz Hotel and Harrods) were killed in a car accident while trying to get away from press photographers in Paris. The scandal surrounding their relationship (Dodi was Muslim whilst Diana was the mother of the future head of the Church of England) has led many people to speculate that they were actually killed in order to prevent further scandal to the throne of England.

Polls suggest that around a quarter of the UK public, and a majority of people in some Arab countries, believe that there was a plot to murder Diana, Princess of Wales. Motivations which have been advanced for such a conspiracy include suggestions that Diana intended to marry Dodi Fayed, that she intended to convert to Islam, that she was pregnant, and that she was to visit the holy land. Organizations which conspiracy theorists suggest are responsible for her death have included French Intelligence, the British Royal Family, the press, the British Intelligence services MI5 or MI6, the CIA, Mossad, the Freemasons, or the IRA.









6. Jewish World Domination [Wikpedia]



This theory, in recent history, extends mainly from the booklet The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which are widely considered to be the beginning of contemporary conspiracy theory literature. The Protocols are considered by some to be an anti-Jewish literary forgery that purports to describe a Jewish plot to achieve world domination. Numerous independent investigations have repeatedly proven it to be a plagiarism and a hoax, yet numerous independent investigations have shown it to be a factual document.

The text was popularized by those opposed to Russian revolutionary movement, and was disseminated further after the revolution of 1905, becoming known worldwide after the 1917 October Revolution. It was widely circulated in the West in 1920 and thereafter. The Great Depression and the rise of Nazism were important developments in the history of the Protocols.

7. Apollo Moon Landing Hoax [Wikpedia]



Apollo Moon Landing hoax accusations are claims that some or all elements of the Apollo Moon landings were faked by NASA and possibly members of other involved organizations. Some groups and individuals have advanced alternate historical narratives which tend, to varying degrees, to state that the Apollo Astronauts did not land on the moon, and that NASA created and continues to perpetuate this hoax.

Moon hoax proponents devote a substantial portion of their efforts to examining NASA photos. They point to various issues with photographs and films purportedly taken on the Moon. Experts in photography (even those unrelated to NASA) respond that the anomalies, while sometimes counterintuitive, are in fact precisely what one would expect from a real Moon landing, and contrary to what would occur with manipulated or studio imagery. Hoax proponents also state that whistleblowers may have deliberately manipulated the NASA photos in hope of exposing NASA.

8. Pearl Harbor Was Allowed to Happen [Wikpedia]



This theory states that President Roosevelt (FDR) provoked the attack, knew about it in advance and covered up his failure to warn the Hawaiian commanders. FDR needed the attack to sucker Hitler to declare war, since the public and Congress were overwhelmingly against entering the war in Europe. It was his backdoor to war.

Theorists believe that the US was warned by, at least, the governments of Britain, Netherlands, Australia, Peru, Korea and the Soviet Union that a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor was coming. All important Japanese codes were broken. FDR and Marshall and others knew the attack was coming, allowed it and covered up their knowledge.

9. The Third Secret of Fatima [Wikpedia]



The Three Secrets of Fatima are said to be three prophecies that were given by an apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary to three young Portuguese shepherds, Lucia Santos and her cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marto. From May to October, 1917, the three children claimed to have witnessed this Marian apparition, which is today popularly described as Our Lady of Fatima. On July 13 the Virgin Mary is said to have entrusted the three secrets – in the form of prophecies – to the young visionaries. Two of the secrets were revealed in 1941 in a document written by Lucia to assist with the canonization of her cousins, while the third was to remain secret, although the bishop of Leiria commanded Lucia to put it in writing and to present it to the Pope.

A Catholic priest who has apparently seen the original text of the “third secret” of Fatima disputes the official interpretation of the secret released by the Vatican. Furthermore, he has asked key people in the Vatican about the text and has gotten no response. While the Priest’s comments are somewhat radical, they are not without merit, as he has seen the secret with his own eyes. Moreover, while the first 2 secrets are fairly obvious and clear, leading some to wonder why the third one is required to be examined by a team of experts because of its complexity.

10. The Philadelphia Experiment [Wikpedia]



The Philadelphia Experiment was an alleged naval military experiment at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, sometime around the date of October 28, 1943, in which the U.S. destroyer escort USS Eldridge was to be rendered invisible to human observers for a brief period of time. It is also referred to as Project Rainbow. The story is widely regarded as a hoax. The U.S. Navy has stated that the experiment never occurred, and furthermore, details of the story contradict stated facts about the Eldridge. It has nonetheless caused a significant ripple effect in many conspiracy theory circles, and elements of the Philadelphia Experiment are featured in many other government conspiracy theories.

According to some accounts, the experiment was conducted by a Dr. Franklin Reno (or Rinehart) as a military application of a Unified Field Theory. The theory, briefly, postulates the interrelated nature of the forces that comprise electromagnetic radiation and gravity. Through a special application of the theory, it was thought possible, with specialized equipment and sufficient energy, to bend light around an object in such a way as to render it essentially invisible to observers. The Navy considered this application of the theory to be of obvious military value (especially as the United States was engaged in World War II at the time) and both approved and sponsored the experiment. A navy destroyer escort, the USS Eldridge, was fitted with the required equipment at the naval yards in Philadelphia.

A King in arrival? Mcillroy makes em eat humble pie..

Rory McIlroy never wished for a do-over - only a second chance.
When he got it, he grabbed on and didn't let go.
He went from learning lessons at the Masters to teaching them at the U.S. Open, from absorbing a heartbreaking loss in Augusta to administering a record-setting beating near Washington.
He did it with precision on the golf course and tenderness durin

g the victory celebration, grabbing his dad by the neck for a big hug, then telling him "This one's for you," as he accepted his first major-championship trophy.
He won with a performance that goes down as one of the best in the history of the sport - a wire-to-wire stranglehold that spilled fresh ink all over the U.S. Open record book and tears in his home of Northern Ireland.
"There's a lot of joy," McIlroy said, "and especially with this victory, there's quite a bit of relief, as well."
McIlroy shot 2-under 69 on Sunday to finish his four-day U.S. Open golf clinic and set aside the pain of his Masters meltdown for good. His overall score of 16-under 268 shattered the U.S. Open record - held by Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and two others - by four strokes.
Jason Day's second-place score of 8 under tied for the third-best score in relation to par in U.S. Open history. But Day, like everyone else, knew how this one was going to turn out.
"I'm not going to go home and cry because I got whooped," Day said. "But Rory, you can't beat a guy that's gone out and played as well as he has this week."
The two greatest players in the game knew what they had seen. Tiger Woods said, "What a performance from start to finish." Nicklaus, who had been mentoring McIlroy over the past several months, was equally impressed.
"We are all aware that he has been there before, but he showed that he learned from his mistakes, and he showed that he knew how to play the last two days with a big lead," Nicklaus said. "Not only did Rory know how to play with a big lead, he played it confidently, played it smartly, and he never put himself in position to be in trouble."
Though it's only been two months, McIlroy has come a long way since he blew his four-shot lead and shot 80 on the last day at the Masters. A conversation with his father, Gerry, shortly after that collapse told the father everything he needed to know about his son.
"I said, Rory, are you OK, son?' Because you always fear for your kids," Gerry McIlroy said. "And he says, 'Dad, um, I have no problem with it at all. I hit a few bad shots. And if you play golf, then you'll understand that.'"
The hole that best defined how far McIlroy has come was No. 10, which is where his meltdown began at Augusta with a tee shot that strayed so far left, nobody could remember seeing a ball there before.
The 10th at Congressional is a 214-yard, downhill par 3 over water that had been frightening the players since the beginning of the week. McIlroy spun the ball to 2 inches.
He made birdie there to get to 17 under, then a par on 11 to keep his lead at eight strokes.
"After I got past the 11th, I sort of knew I would have had to have done something really, really stupid to not win," McIlroy said.
He did make two bogeys down the stretch, including his first three-putt of the tournament on the 17th green, maybe just to prove he's human. Besides that, it was another day of accurate drives and high, spinning shots into soft greens.
On the way to his victory, McIrloy also set the 36- and 54-hole scoring records and reached 17-under par - a number five shots better than the best score anyone had ever reached at any time in the history of the tournament.
At what is supposed to be the toughest test in golf, McIlroy more than passed. Over four days of nearly perfect ball control off the tee box and the fairway, he hit 62 of 72 greens in regulation - 86 percent. The leader on the PGA Tour, where the courses are easier, hits 72 percent.
Stats like those explain how McIlroy shot four rounds in the 60s, joining Lee Trevino and Lee Janzen as the only players to do that at a U.S. Open.
"To have the lowest four-round total, the most amount of strokes under par, they're all really nice records," McIlroy said. "I said this on Friday after everyone was talking about the lowest 36-hole, the lowest this, the lowest that. I said it's nice, but I'll be able to enjoy it a little bit more if I have the trophy on Sunday. And it's worked out that way."
With the rain that saturated the course and rough that didn't live up to U.S. Open standards, this turned into one of the easiest venues the tournament has seen.
The course yielded 239 birdies Sunday - an average of more than 3.3 per player - and 32 rounds under par, beating the U.S. Open record for the weekend that had been set the day before.
But to most players, that didn't take away from McIlroy's victory.
"If you play well, and obviously Rory has, then you deserve to make birdies and shoot a good score," said Lee Westwood, one of the few who, heading into Sunday, hadn't already conceded the title. "If you play poorly, then you got punished out there. It was a good, fair, honest test. I thought it was great."
Westwood joined Y.E. Yang, Robert Garrigus and Kevin Chappell in a four-way tie for third. They all knew they were in the `B' flight of this tournament, and when they came off the course, they answered question after question about the winner.
"I think he has probably the most talent I've ever seen from a golfer," said world No. 1 Luke Donald.
Padraig Harrington: "I think Rory has set himself apart now in potential."
McIlroy's buddy, Graeme McDowell: "Nothing this kid does ever surprises me. He's the best player I've ever seen."
McDowell and McIlroy make it back-to-back championships for Northern Ireland, where the song "Rory, Rory Hallelujah," was echoing late in the evening at the Holywood Golf Club.
But this win figures to reverberate beyond his native land.
Golf has been looking for someone to take the spot Woods once held, before his personal life and game took a turn for the worse. Over a near-flawless week at Congressional, McIlroy put on a performance that foreshadowed bigger things to come.
"He's great for golf. He's a breath of fresh air for the game, and perhaps we're ready for golf's next superstar," McDowell said. "And maybe Rory is it."

11 111th Congressional US Open: The One you have the rights to brag on!

As the rains came and the clouds grew darker today, Rory McIlroy sought shelter. His glorious round — a 6-under-par 65 — was complete, and it was time to get dry.

The walk from the ninth green to the scoring room at Congressional Country Club is about 50 paces, and, in the moments as his group milled about before heading into the clubhouse, McIlroy was left out in the rain.

McIlroy’s caddie had his umbrella and his hat, so he had to continuously shake his moppy head of hair like a dog trying to dry off. When his playing partner, Dustin Johnson, walked over and offered his umbrella, McIlroy looked up and laughed.

“No, thanks,” he said with that trademark Irish grin. “I’ll be all right.”

Actually, the kid is better than all right — and maybe he’ll be downright impervious to everything thrown his way this week. After the first day of the 111th U.S. Open, McIlroy did what he did at St. Andrews last year in the British Open and at Augusta National two months ago at the Masters:

He posted the best number of the day and gave the field something to chase.

And once again, the 22-year old Northern Irishman will have to answer questions about playing with the lead at a major. He’ll be reminded about how he let a four-shot lead after 54 holes at the Masters dissolve into a final-round 80, or how he followed a record 63 on the first day of the British last summer with an 80.

As he craftily maneuvered his way around Congressional’s brawny 7,514 yards, there were the reminders of what has happened when he’s been in this position.

“I think you definitely have to analyze the parts that you want to do better,” McIlroy said. “But I really stopped thinking about it a week after. You really try to pick it apart and pick things out that you could have done better, but after you do that and you’re happy with everything that you’ve sort of taken from it, then you’ve just got to move on.”

That seems to have been the best medicine.

By grabbing the overnight lead after day one, McIlroy has now pulled off a rare quartet in golf: He has held a share or the outright lead at each of the past four major championships. But he, more than most in the field, knows that trophies aren’t won on Thursdays.

“Well, there’s definitely no relief in it,” McIlroy said. “It’s always nice to shoot a good first round at any tournament, let alone a major. But no relief. I know I’m playing well. I know this golf course. I know I’m pretty comfortable on this golf course, so I expected to go out there and — if I hit it the way I hit it in the practice rounds — I was going to always do pretty good.”

Now the focus is keeping it up.

His three-shot lead isn’t insurmountable, especially given that 23 players put up red numbers in the first round. The three immediate pursuers all have the one thing McIlroy has fumbled away: a major. There’s 2009 PGA Championship winner Y.E. Yang at 3-under, alongside the beneficiary of McIlroy’s Masters meltdown, Charl Schwartzel. And then, Louis Oosthuizen — who romped to the British Open title last year when McIlroy left the door open — leads a group of six players at 2-under.

“Definitely it’ll help,” Yang said about experience in winning a major. “I’m not sure if it boosts my confidence or helps me under pressure. But I know the feeling and I know that it’s a little more of everything in a major than it is in other tournaments.”

Said Schwartzel: “It’s a long way to go. But it’s nice to get yourself in contention. It makes your work almost less. If you start falling too far behind on a tough golf course, things can get a little bit too far in front of you. So you need to stay in there with a chance.”

Over the next 54 holes (or more), McIlroy has the same chance. With that in mind, he’s focused on the present — and not the past. That’s why in the commotion of the clubhouse lobby in front of the locker room afterward, a small gesture from his father, Gerry, meant so much.

Before McIlroy went back outside for a television interview, his father tapped him on the shoulder and stuck his hand out. The son gave the father a firm handshake and a nod that he had done well.

That after this day, everything — including what has still yet to come — would be all right.

“I don’t think I should be trying to do anything differently tomorrow than I did today,” McIlroy said. “I didn’t go out there thinking about shooting any sort of score. ... I’m sort of taking my mind off what’s going on here. Watch a move or just try and completely forget about what I’ve done today and start fresh tomorrow.”

The Anatomy of Hate. An Essay.

The International conference on hate seemed a bravely ambitious proposition. Elie Wiesel's idea was to assemble the forces of charisma and rationality in Oslo, to focus their light for three days, and thus force the darkness to recede a little.

It was Wiesel's moral authority that brought together Vaclav Havel and Nelson Mandela; Jimmy Carter and Francois Mitterrand; the authors Gunter Grass and Nadine Gordimer; Chai Ling and Li Lu, leaders of the democracy movement in Tiananmen Square -- an astonishing collection of Nobel prizewinners, professors, rectors, saints. A man could not make his way through the SAS Scandinavia Hotel in Oslo without ricocheting off one paragon or another. Such saturations of virtue and celebrity gave me a jolt of anxiety: this is a perfect target for a bomb. But the choice of Oslo was canny. Norway has its immunities.

Hate is difficult to discuss. The mind resists it. The subject is amorphous, disorderly, malignant. Presiding over the Oslo conference, Elie Wiesel controlled a red light on the podium that he used to warn a speaker when his time was up (even Carter got red-lighted). It was as if hatred is intellectually and morally such a dangerous, unmanageable mess, such a monster, that Wiesel, the kindest of men, had to police the dialogue like an anxious warden. He said he had nightmares about the red light.

While wondering vaguely why hatred is not one of the Seven Deadly Sins (Is it covered under Wrath?) and why the Old Testament is so full of hate, I ; stared at the back of Nelson Mandela's head as he sat at the conference table -- a nimbus of television light around his charcoal hair, the man enveloped in utter stillness, the most thorough self-possession I have ever beheld. Does 27 years in prison make a man so calm? As I listened to Gunter Grass (a stolid German with some huge gravity pulling him earthward) discussing the Nazis, my mind drifted to Vaclav Havel, who I decided is an alert woodland creature. Jimmy Carter shines with a likable sweetness, but he is tougher than you may think.

What is hate? A "black sun," as Wiesel wrote? The image may give hate too much of a strange literary prestige. Black sun. White whale. Whatever. The reason the subject is hard to discuss is that hate is simultaneously a mystery and a moron. It seems either too profound to understand or too shallow and stupid to bear much analysis -- a cretin with a club, violent, repulsive, irrational, a black intoxication, an accomplice of death.

The delegates in Oslo were virtue's choir, of course, and they sang beautifully. If there was a hater among them, he kept his secret and did not stain the refulgence. Virtually the only controversy organized itself in a division between objectivists and subjectivists. The subjectivists (poets and moralists) looked for the seeds of hatred within the human heart. The objectivists (economists, historians, lawyers) dismissed such vaporings and located the causes of hatred in the conditions of peoples' lives. "Hard, visible circumstance defines reality," said John Kenneth Galbraith. In the past 45 years, he pointed out, no one has been killed, except by accident, in conflict between rich industrial countries. In poor nations of the world, millions of people have died in struggles during those years. "Out of poverty has come conflict." Elena Bonner, the widow of Andrei Sakharov, stated the objectivists' case in an irritable burst: "Moral concepts are lovely, but the key is governing these things by law."

Vaclav Havel began by confessing an incapacity to hate -- a suspect claim from most other men. "I look at hatred only as an observer," he said, and then proceeded to look at hatred as an artist does. He began with the psychology of individual hate: "It has a lot in common with love, chiefly with that self-transcending aspect of love, the fixation on others, the dependence on them and in fact the delegation of a piece of one's own identity to them . . . The hater longs for the object of his hatred."

Hatred, Havel said, "is a diabolical attribute of the fallen angel: it is a state of the spirit that aspires to be God, that may even think it is God, and is tormented by indications that it is not and cannot be." The typical hater: "a serious face, a quickness to take offense, strong language, shouting, the inability to step outside himself and see his own foolishness."

The subtitle of the conference was "Resolving Conflict Through Dialogue and Democracy." But neither dialogue nor democracy is ultimately the answer. The author Conor Cruise-O'Brien pointed out that Neville Chamberlain's faith in dialogue gave the world the appeasement at Munich. As for democracy, said Carter: "Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Germany evolved from the results of a free election. We do not like to remember that."

What is the antidote? Education. Law. Justice. Charity. Love. I came at last to think that the subject in Oslo was not exactly hate, but on the dark side, evil, and on the other, hope. Havel said he is neither an optimist nor a pessimist: "I just carry hope in my heart. Hope is not a feeling of certainty, that everything ends well. Hope is just a feeling that life and work have a meaning." Hope is the thing with feathers. Or the thing in diapers.

The conference dispersed. The plane climbed up from Norway and made its way into the thinnest, coldest air. The planet became a fluffy abstraction beneath the wings. Time warped. A man who was in Auschwitz as a boy walked down the aisle to borrow the Wall Street Journal. Someone told a joke about Eleanor Roosevelt. Survivors and ghosts at 35,000 feet -- moral afterlives.

My own trajectory from Oslo ended a day or so later in the New York City subway station where a tourist was murdered. The sociopaths who killed him did not hate him. Not at all. They wanted money to go dancing at Roseland. That blank, murderous absence of hate holds terrors that did not come up in Oslo.

Now! thats technology..

Ford is working with automakers and safety leaders globally on a standardised platform for advanced wireless systems that can allow vehicles to “talk” to each other – based on a common communication standard – to reduce crashes and congestion.

Intelligent vehicles potentially could help in preventing 81% of all police-reported light-vehicle target crashes involving unimpaired drivers, according to a US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) report.

The company says that global vehicle manufacturers need harmonised standards while the technology is being researched and developed, or the industry could end up with a variety of standards and vehicles that cannot talk to each other from region to region. It adds that failure to develop these globally harmonised standards would delay deployment, decrease reliability and unnecessarily increase costs.

Ford’s researchers are already developing advanced crash avoidance systems that use GPS technologies and advanced Wi-Fi signals, or dedicated short-range communications, on a secured channel allocated by the Federal Communications Commission. The essence is to create intelligent vehicles that communicate with each other in traffic and help drivers avoid or mitigate crashes.

In Germany, the company is collaborating on a wireless research project with other automakers and the government in an effort to address congestion-related traffic safety issues. The Safe and Intelligent Mobility-Test Field Germany research project, which runs through 2012, is a 400-vehicle field test to evaluate feasibility and scalability of wireless systems in the real world.

The Wi-Fi-based radio system allows full-range, 360-degree detection of potentially dangerous situations, such as when a driver’s vision is obstructed. For example, drivers could be alerted if their vehicle is on path to collide with another vehicle at an intersection, when a vehicle ahead stops or slows suddenly or when a traffic pattern changes on a busy highway. The systems could also warn drivers if there is a risk of collision when changing lanes, approaching a stationary or parked vehicle, or if another driver loses control.

Over in the US, meanwhile, it’s contributing two prototype Ford Taurus sedans for a series of clinics slated for later this year. The research will be conducted by a coalition of automakers organised by the Crash Avoidance Metrics Partnership (CAMP), a joint research group founded by Ford and General Motors which is working to develop inter-operability standards in advance of completing the research phase in 2013.

By reducing crashes, intelligent vehicles could ease traffic delays, which would save drivers both time and fuel costs. Congestion also could be avoided through a network of intelligent vehicles and infrastructure that would process real-time traffic and road information and allow drivers to choose less congested routes.

Systems Review :How do you actually get ahead in manufacturing..

Many companies have successfully transformed their manufacturing, R&D, and other business functions, improving their performance while stripping out cost. Yet far fewer have optimized their service operations, even though they can have an outsized effect on customer acquisition and retention. When service levels and costs are properly balanced and optimized, they can deliver a substantial and sustainable competitive advantage that competitors will find hard to match.

By their nature, service operations are often labor intensive and complex to manage. Repetition and consistency, typical hallmarks of excellence in service operations, can work against a company that is trying to achieve step-change improvements in processes and behaviors. Additionally, executives across many industries are finding it increasingly challenging to keep service costs in check (especially labor costs, the single largest cost component of any service operation) while maintaining service levels. Recent technological advances — for example, self-service kiosks commonly found in airports, banks, and hotels — have helped improve overall productivity, but technology is only one part of the solution.

Designing a tailored set of service models based on customer segments is a prerequisite for providing the desired services without overspending. Whether the business is a retailer trying to optimize sales floor coverage, a hospital seeking to improve care delivery by better allocating nurses and beds, a hotel working to speed up check-in times, or a manufacturer delivering technical support in global markets, the leaders of the organization must rigorously and holistically manage the factors that affect service delivery and costs.

Six Principal Drivers of Service Quality and Cost
Service operations leaders must be in a position to identify and capture opportunities for improvement. To help, Booz & Company has developed a framework that encompasses the main factors determining the quality and cost of service.

1. Product and process design. The foundation for high-quality, cost-effective service operations is established far upstream of the point of service delivery — during product design or, in the case of services companies, process design. Design affects quality and total service costs in significant ways. In particular, it can reduce service costs early in product life cycles by reducing defects, and it can reduce total service costs by shrinking the time it takes for a product to move from infancy to a stable, mature stage.

Streamlining product architectures and configurations, for example, can have a beneficial effect on service. One computer equipment company saved on repair, order processing, and technical support costs simply by installing its largest hard drive in every unit sold.

Analyzing quality at the product level can also help discern problems that can lead to higher service costs. By uncovering notable differences in mean time between failures (how often a product breaks) and mean time to repair (how long it takes to fix it) between products developed internally and those developed by a third party, another computer manufacturer was able to take steps to close the gap by improving design and technician training for the inferior products.

Embedding remote diagnosis and repair capabilities in products and processes can simultaneously reduce service costs (right part, right place) and enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty.

2. Service-level labor requirements. Typically, labor is the largest cost in service operations and a key driver of customer satisfaction. Matching service requirements to customer needs, desires, and expectations is job number one. Some customers may want a lot of hand-holding, whereas others may be content with self-service options, for example, bank ATMs, grocery self-checkouts, and automated tech support online or via phone. Matching customer expectations with the service delivery method increases revenue and simultaneously lowers the cost-to-serve.

Service operations leaders analyze usage patterns and consider them in light of corporate targets, such as market share and revenue goals, to ensure the proper service coverage. One company with a large and active mail room undertook such an analysis and discovered that misalignments in its service coverage resulted in unnecessary idle time at some times of the day and backlogs at other times. By realigning coverage with demand, the company was able to process incoming demand within the agreed-upon service level, as well as reduce labor costs by decreasing coverage during slow periods. This change enabled the company to increase overall productivity, and improved customer satisfaction — resulting in increased revenues.
Service network structure. Over time, as business and economic growth rates vary, mergers and acquisitions occur, and companies change their product mix and market focus, service costs can get out of whack. Management layers become excessive, processes become less standardized, workloads no longer align with staffing levels, and unnecessary facility expenses are incurred. Sometimes it is necessary to rethink how a service delivery network is structured. One service outsourcer was maintaining two separate organizations to provide hardware installation and repair in the same geographic areas. This model had enabled fast response in the past, but as the volume of service requests declined, partially owing to design and quality improvements, it made more sense to consolidate the two organizations.

The efficiency of service operations also tends to vary greatly among geographic locations. By putting in place the proper tracking and reporting processes, companies can smooth out variances and improve service performance overall. Alternatively, companies can use shared-services models to significantly reduce overhead costs.

Outsourcing will often produce short-term cost savings, but if it negatively affects customer satisfaction and the company’s competitive position, outsourcing can be counterproductive in the long term. The right mix of sourcing balances low costs and service quality in a way that enhances a company’s competitive advantage.

4. Service process management. Service processes are rarely static; they change in response to the needs of the business and its customers. This being the case, they need continual monitoring and adjusting to keep costs in check and ensure their ongoing effectiveness. Continuous improvement is a widely accepted idea, but in many companies, the culture does not easily support it. Further, service processes need gatekeepers who have decision rights for process changes and are accountable for their performance.

Meanwhile, companies can look to identify any process steps that can be standardized across customers and geographies. Process standardization (and automation when possible) can reduce labor requirements and enhance customer satisfaction. For example, one regional hospital reduced the wait time for new admissions from four and a half hours to one and a half hours by standardizing the admissions approval process.

5. Workforce management. The productivity of employees is a major consideration in all service operations. To optimize employee productivity, decision makers need to first calculate the total labor hours they need in each location, either in a bottom-up manner — by identifying labor drivers and creating a model for determining task times and frequencies — or in a top-down manner, one based on comparisons of operational performance to labor hours. Either method works, but the bottom-up approach offers an additional benefit in that it allows labor hours to be more easily adjusted as input drivers change. For example, one company created a detailed model, based on unique store demand patterns, to calculate the necessary staffing required to manage its truck tire service centers, generating a 12 percent savings in labor costs.

Once labor hours per location are determined, management can consider how the hours should be apportioned between full-time and part-time employees, and how these employees should be scheduled to meet customer demand and fulfill operational activities. For example, when one hotel studied its check-in process, it discovered that many guests were experiencing check-in waits of more than 20 minutes. A significant number of guests waited so long that they said they did not intend to stay at the hotel again. However, with the addition of just five part-time employees surgically inserted during peak periods, a small additional expenditure within the hotel’s budget, more than 90 percent of guests could be checked in with less than a 15-minute wait.

6. Measurement and compensation. Unfortunately, few service operations and companies have sophisticated performance measurement and compensation structures. Most fall into one of three groups: those that track metrics in a consistent way at all levels, but have not aligned their compensation systems to the metrics; those that track metrics, but use inconsistent definitions across levels; and those that don’t track metrics at all. Nonexistent, inappropriate, or inconsistent measurements result in missed improvement opportunities, the inability to understand whether process changes are working, and ineffective decision making.
Meanwhile, most service organizations, especially in the retail sector, are drowning in data and collecting more every day, yet are still thirsty for insights. To overcome this problem, companies should identify the data that is most relevant to the performance of their service operations and ensure that it is properly collected and used. It is important to collect nonfinancial data, such as customer profitability and customer satisfaction, as well as key financial and operational indicators.

The next step is to align compensation and reward systems with desired employee behaviors. By clearly defining compensation and rewards, and communicating the metrics that determine them, service operations can stimulate employee motivation and provide the clarity that people need in order to change their behaviors.

Further, service operations managers should work with HR to take a more proactive role in establishing and managing compensation and reward systems. They should recognize that tenured workforces come at a higher cost that often cannot be justified in terms of performance; a lack of salary caps and compensation bands can create wide variations in cost among similarly skilled employees; and market-based salary reference points are often inflated and thus serve as a poor guide to compensation. To address the problems that result from unsupported assumptions, companies can act with varying levels of aggressiveness to reduce labor costs. Levels of reduction will depend on internal and external factors that include individual performance, salary benchmarks, the financial condition and goals of the company, and labor supply conditions. (See also “Retooling Labor Costs: How to Fix Workforce Pay Structures,” by Harry Hawkes, Albert Kent, Vikas Bhalla, and Nicholas Buckner, Booz & Company white paper, September 2010.)

Brass Tacks
Service strategy success always comes down to execution. As service operations leaders approach the quality and cost challenge, they should pay particular attention to the first two drivers: product and process design and service-level labor requirements. Too often, these drivers are overlooked because they must be activated in the design stage of products and processes: a stage in which service managers traditionally have not participated. The remaining four drivers — service network structure, service process management, workforce management, and measurement and compensation — are the levers that service leaders can pull to improve the quality and cost of existing operations. Savvy service leaders recognize the interconnected nature of these four drivers and approach them in an integrated and holistic manner.

High-quality, cost-effective service is essential to corporate success, but it is particularly challenging to achieve. Defining unique customer segments and models to profitably serve them requires frequent analysis. Service workforces tend to be large and have high turnover rates; they are difficult to mobilize. Service processes are complex and often dependent on the consistent execution of many detailed steps. And big, dramatic solutions to excessive costs are rare. Nevertheless, companies that take a measured and comprehensive approach to delivering service can improve their bottom line and gain a hard-to-match competitive advantage in the marketplace.

CR 357 Rests.

SapuraCrest Petroleum Berhad participated in the Oil and Gas Asia Exhibition 2011 (OGA) that successfully took place from 1 to 3 June 2011 at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, joining 1,500 other Oil & Gas companies from 50 countries.

Among the exhibits at SapuraCrest booth were Seaeye Surveyor ROV, LBV200-4 Observation ROV and Echo ...Yodel Pipeline Tool, followed by models of Sapura 3000, J-Lay tower, LTS 3000, QP 2000, Teknik Wira, Sarku 300 and T10.

The official launch ceremony was held on Thursday, 2 June 2011 at the same venue, graced by The Honourable Deputy Prime Minister, YAB Tan Sri Dato’ Haji Muhyiddin Yassin. Also present at the ceremony were Chairman & Founder of Sapura Group, YBhg Tan Sri Shamsuddin Abdul Kadir, President & CEO of Sapura Group, YBhg Datuk Shahril Shamsuddin, and other delegates from the Oil & Gas industry from all around the region.

“Malaysia is targeting five percent annual growth for the energy sector in the decade from 2010 to 2020. This target translates into an increase of RM131.4 billion in the period from 2010 to 2020. This is indeed an ambitious goal, particularly against a backdrop of the natural decline of oil and gas production” said YAB Tan Sri Dato’ Haji Muhyiddin Yassin in his speech.

He further added “To achieve such ambitions, we are fully aware that there is a need for a one stop Government body with sufficiently deep industry knowledge and expertise that focuses on coordinating and promoting the Malaysian Oil Field Services and Equipment (OFSE) industry. Hence the Government is in the midst of establishing the Malaysia Petroleum Resource Corp, which will look into creating an attractive business environment for multinational companies by ensuring administrative ease as well as to promote the Malaysian OFSE industry to overseas companies and investors, amongst others. OGA 2011 will undoubtedly provide ample opportunities for exhibitors to meet and network with representatives from oil enterprises from throughout Asia-Pacific region”

Sapura had the pleasure of welcoming YAB Tan Sri Dato’ Haji Muhyiddin Yassin at the SapuraCrest booth where he did a walk-through of the various assets displayed at the booth, accompanied by YBhg Tan Sri Shamsuddin Abdul Kadir, YBhg Datuk Shahril Shamsuddin, Encik Shahriman Shamsuddin and the rest of the Sapura team.