Precedent\Prec"e*dent\, n. 1. Something
done or said that may serve as an example to authorize a subsequent act of the same kind;
an authoritative example.
Through out my life, in high school, college, jobs, businesses, dealing with people thought to be professionals, I have
experienced many actions which go against common sense, against 'the book', 'what is right'. When people do
things that are important, they can act in the right way or wrong way, and when they do so they create a precedent. Right
or wrong, when people set a precedent, it leaves an image, brand, that sets a tone for the future. We are trying to
set a precedent of open, honest, useful, truthful and a fair exchange of knowledge, ideas, services and goods on our
web sight, www.LearnABetterLife. We hope to maintain your trust for many years and look forward to many new friends.
A lot of the information,
articles on Learn A Better Life are from other sources, emails sent to myself, advertisements, my own research. As a radio
DJ plays music from different artists, I share information I find useful, logical, I hope truthful, not all of the information
here is original from myself. As in school, Engineering, Management, I did not write all of the books I used, and I did not
agree with every thing I was taught or the required books wrote. I take from everything I experience, and do, and yes through
that process, do contribute and create origional ideas. Everything evolves, people need to learn ABC's to read
and write before they can create original essays about complex topics. We crawl, then walk, then run, if we can.
THE RESPECT YOU RECEIVE IS EQUAL TO THE RESPECT YOU GIVE.
People-jobs, when some one 'bosses' me around, tries to
force me to do something, I automatically resist and get mad, when someone persuades me, 'sells', I might willingly
do something, want to do it. When people come up to me and ask for something, job, favor, housing, I try to respond
with respect, honesty, and explain every thing up front so no misunderstandings later. When I go apply for a job or buy some
thing, I expect respect, no games, no lies, just do the deal as agreed to.
Question: "God helps those who help themselves - is it in the Bible?"
Answer: "God
helps those who help themselves" is probably the most often quoted phrase that is not found in the Bible. This is actually
a quote from Ben Franklin and it appeared in Poor Richard's Almanac in 1757. In fact the Bible teaches the opposite. God
helps the helpless! Isaiah 25:4 declares, "For You have been a defense for the helpless, a defense for the needy in his
distress, a refuge from the storm, a shade from the heat..." Romans 5:6 tells us, "For while we were still helpless,
at the right time Christ died for the ungodly."
In terms of salvation, we are all utterly helpless. We are
all infected by sin (Romans 3:23), and condemned as a result of that sin (Romans 6:23). Nothing we can do on our own can remedy
this situation (Isaiah 64:6). Thankfully, God is the helper of the helpless. While we were still sinners, Jesus died for us
(Romans 5:8). Jesus paid the penalty that we were incapable of paying (2 Corinthians 5:21). God provided the "help"
that we need precisely because we could not help ourselves.
Apart from salvation, there is perhaps a way that the
concept "God helps those who help themselves" is correct. As an example, if you asked me to help you move a piece
of furniture, but then just watched me as I moved the furniture for you, I was not actually helping you. I would be doing
the work for you. Many Christians fall into the trap of inactivity. Many Christians ask God for help, but then expect God
to do everything Himself. They excuse this by pointing to the fact that God will provide according to His will and in His
timing. However, this is not a reason for inactivity. As a specific example, if you are in need of a job, ask the Lord to
help you find a job - but then be active in actually looking for a job. While it is in His power to do so, it is highly unlikely
that God will cause employers to come looking for you!
I have personally ordered eye glasses,
2-1 sale with my prescription, that were at my mail box in 1-2 weeks, the glasses are very nice, look good, and cost me $17.95
for 2 pair plus $5 shipping.
I have ordered T shirts from Vista Print that have been high quality, and delivered
quickly.
GEORGE A. CRAWFORD III
CEO LearnABetterLife.com
We want to be a positive influence on your life. People everywhere are affected and respond to their
surroundings. Our goal is to share positive ideas, information, products and services to help people learn to live better
lives.
We hope you respond to our web sight by sharing any ideas, experience, insights that might help others.
Every one is different yet we all have basic common instincts that can be stimulated by a positive environment, which is what
we hope to do here at LearnABetterLife.com.
'When in Rome, do as the Romans' 'God helps those who help
themselves' 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto yourself' 'birds of a feather flock together'.
The creation of computers, the Internet, wireless connection anywhere anytime, make communication in the year 2007 as fast
as the speed of light (almost) all over the planet.
If you like what we are doing, please let us know and tell
others about us.
Mr. Crawford has 30+ years of computer experience, back to punch cards and vacuum tube readers.
George was born in 1961 and raised in the Kansas City area and has resided in the area his entire life. He graduated
from Shawnee Mission South High School in 1979, Earned a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering at Oklahoma State University in 1983,
and a M.S. in Management at The Krannert Graduate School of Management at Purdue University in 1985. He has held positions
in Retailing, Insurance & Securities, Real Estate Sales, as well as Computer programming, web design, development.
We hope
to present ideas, information that is honest, truthful, and useful. The truth is some times debatable. Ideas change over time,
get modified, evolve. Life has evolved on the planet, science, politics, medicine all evolve over time. We live, we learn.
We do not intend on 'steering people' in any direction, just offer paths, with as much objective information
so you and myself can think for ourselves, and go from there.
Thanks
again for visiting our sight. We are adding a lot of advertisers selling products we hope will be of interest to you. A
lot of the products are unique, the advertisers offer special online deals when you buy things here. Shopping over the
Internet has become a multi billion $ industry, we hope that if you see any thing on our sight that interests you, you will
click on our sight and buy it because that is how this sight earns money.
We are early in development and are trying to add content, articles, information that is a benefit to you.
We are always looking for valid, credible information to share on the web sight. As with any business, school, personal relationship,
honesty, trust is vital for the relationship and success. If you do not trust our sight, if we present content that is
not valid or credible, we want to know. If you click on an advertiser, buy a product, we would like positive feed back, or
constructive criticism if anything is negative.
Your honest
evaluation of this web sight is critical to our success. We hope to improve your lives, and always look for ways to improve
ourselves.
In order for people
to be motivated they have to want to do something, they have to believe if they try to do something, with their abilities,
that they can do it, they have to believe if they do achieve their goal, the desired outcome will occur, 'reward',
and finally they have to want the desired outcome, value the 'reward'
When I have not been allowed to pursue
my goals, when I have done things with my abilities and been sabotaged or flat out denied my expected outcome after achieving
the goal, I lose motivation.
My abilities that I think I have are based on my experience in Life, what people have
told me in school, business, family, the idealistic theories of the U.S. constitution, TV, newspapers, the Internet.
People are born with certain characteristics from their parents, DNA, genes, economic conditions, surroundings of other
people-trusted friends or enemies, environmental, political, physical surroundings. Everything that a person encounters affects
them. EVERY ACTION CAUSES A REACTION. Negative or positive events form precedents for every person. Stereotypes are formed
by these precedents, in each persons mind about others, about them selves, and how a person tries to project them selves to
others.
People form ideas about other people, normality's are observed, when normality's are no longer
observed, changes in accepted or observed behavior occur, questions arise. Statistical averages, stereotypes, can hint at
an accepted idea, when the stereotype is broken, when a occurrence outside of the norm happens, questions come up, SOMETHING
IS WRONG.
In Roman mythology, Veritas (meaning truth) was the goddess of truth, a daughter of Saturn and the mother of Virtue. It was believed that she hid in the bottom of a well because she was so elusive. Her image is shown as a young virgin dressed
in white.[1]Veritas is also the name given to the Roman virtue of truthfulness, which was considered one of the main virtues any good Roman should have possessed. (In Greek mythology, Veritas was known as Aletheia.)
Credibility is the objective and subjective components of the believability
of a source or message. Traditionally, credibility is composed of two primary dimensions: trustworthiness and expertise, which
have both objective and subjective components. That is, trustworthiness is a receiver judgment based on subjective factors.
Expertise can be similarly subjectively perceived but includes relatively objective characteristics of the source or message
as well (e.g., source credentials or information quality). Some secondary dimensions include source dynamism (charisma) and
physical attractiveness, for example.
Credibility online has become an important topic since the mid-1990s, as the web
has increasingly become an information resource. The Credibility and Digital Media Project @ UCSB highlights recent and ongoing work in this area, including recent consideration of digital media, youth, and credibility.
In addition, the Persuasive Technology Labat Stanford University has studied web credibility and proposed the principal components of online credibility and a general
theory called Prominence-Interpretation Theory.
According to the Society of Professional Journalists code of ethics, professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalists credibility.
reliability
In general, reliability
(systemic def.) is the ability of a person or system to perform and maintain its functions in routine circumstances, as well
as hostile or unexpected circumstances.
In statistics, reliability is the consistency of a set of measurements or measuring instrument. This can either be whether
the measurements of the same instrument give (test-retest) or are likely to give the same measurement, or in the case of more
subjective instruments, whether two independent assessors give similar scores (inter-rater reliability). Reliability does not imply validity. That is, a reliable measure is measuring something consistently, but not necessarily what it is supposed to be measuring.
For example, while there are many reliable tests of specific abilities, not all of them would be valid for predicting, say,
job performance.
In experimental sciences, reliability is the extent to which the measurements of a test remain consistent over repeated
tests of the same subject under identical conditions. An experiment is reliable if it yields consistent results of the same
measure. It is unreliable if repeated measurements give different results.
In engineering, reliability is the ability of a system or component to perform its required functions under stated conditions
for a specified period of time." It is often reported in terms of a probability. Evaluations of reliability involve the
use of many statistical tools. See Reliability engineering for further discussion.
In psychology, validity has two distinct fields of application. The first involves test validity,
a concept that has evolved with the field of psychometrics but which textbooks still commonly gloss as the degree to which
a test measures what it was designed to measure. The second involves research design. Here the term refers to the degree to
which a study supports the intended conclusion drawn from the results. In the Campbellian tradition, this latter sense divides into four aspects: support for the conclusion that the causal variable caused the effect
variable in the specific study (internal validity), support that the same effect generalizes to the statistical population
from which the sample was drawn (statistical conclusion validity), support for the intended interpretation of the variables
(construct validity), and support for the generalization of the results beyond the statistical population (external validity).
The term validity as it occurs in logic refers generally to a property of deductive arguments, although many logic texts apply the term to statements as well (a statement is a sentence that
“has a truth value,” i.e., that is either true or false). For the purposes of this article, an argument
is a set of statements, one of which is the conclusion and the rest of which are premises. The premises are reasons intended
to show that the conclusion is, or is probably, true.
When an argument is set forth to show that its conclusion is
true (as opposed to probably true), then the argument is intended to be deductive. An argument set forth to show that its conclusion is probably true may be regarded as inductive. To say that an argument is valid is to say that the conclusion really does follow from the premises. That is, an argument
is valid precisely when it cannot possibly lead from true premises to a false conclusion. The following definition is fairly typical:
An argument is deductively
valid if it cannot possibly have all true premises and a false conclusion.
An argument that
is not valid is said to be ‘’invalid’’.
All men are mortal
Socrates
is a man
Therefore, Socrates is mortal.
What makes this a valid argument is not the mere
fact that it has true premises and a true conclusion, but the fact of the logical impossibility of things being otherwise.
No matter how the universe might be constructed, it could never be the case that this argument should turn out to have simultaneously
true premises but a false conclusion. The above argument may be contrasted with the following invalid one:
All
men are mortal
Socrates is mortal
Therefore, Socrates is a man
In this
case, there is no impossibility of true premises but false conclusion: it is easily imagined that there is a woman named ‘Socrates’,
so that in fact the above premises would be true but the conclusion false—hence it is possible that the argument has
true premises and a false conclusion. This possibility is what constitutes invalidity. (Although whether or not an argument
is valid does not depend on what anyone could actually imagine to be the case, this approach helps us evaluate some arguments.)
A
standard view is that whether an argument is valid is a matter of the argument’s logical form. Many techniques are employed by logicians to represent an argument’s logical form. A simple example, applied to the
above two illustrations, is the following: Let the letters ‘P’, ‘Q’, and ‘s’ stand, respectively,
for the set of men, the set of mortals, and Socrates. Using these symbols, the first argument may be abbreviated as:
All
P are Q
s is a P
Therefore, s is a Q
Similarly, the second argument becomes:
All
P are Q
s is a Q
Therefore, s is a P.
These abbreviations make plain the
logical form of each respective argument. At this level, notice that we can talk about any arguments
that may take on one or the other of the above two configurations, by replacing the letters P, Q and s
by appropriate expressions. Of particular interest is the fact that we may exploit an argument's form to help discover
whether or not the argument from which it has been obtained is or is not valid. To do this, we define an “interpretation”
of the argument as an assignment of sets of objects to the upper-case letters in the argument form, and the assignment of
a single individual member of a set to the lower-case letters of the argument form. Thus, letting P stand for the set of men,
Q stand for the set of mortals, and s stand for Socrates is an interpretation of each of the above arguments. Using this terminology,
we may give a formal analogue of the definition of deductive validity:
An argument is formally
valid if its form is one for which no interpretation exists under which the premises are all true but the conclusion
false.
As already seen, the interpretation given above does cause the second argument form to have
true premises and false conclusion, hence demonstrating its invalidity.
Precedent \Pre*ced"ent\, a. [L. praecedens, -entis, p. pr. of praecedere: cf. F.
pr['e]c['e]dent. See {Precede}.] Going before; anterior; preceding; antecedent; as, precedent services. --Shak. "A precedent injury."
--Bacon.
[1913 Webster]
{Condition precedent} (Law), a condition which precede the vesting of an estate, or the accruing of a right.
Precedent\Prec"e*dent\, n. 1. Something
done or said that may serve as an example to authorize a subsequent act of the same kind; an authoritative
example.
[1913 Webster]
Examples for cases can but
direct as precedents only. --Hooker.
[1913
Webster]
2. A preceding circumstance or condition; an antecedent; hence, a prognostic; a token;
a sign. [Obs.]
[1913 Webster]
3. A rough draught of a writing which precedes a finished copy. [Obs.]--Shak.
[1913 Webster]
4. (Law) A judicial decision which serves as a
rule for future determinations in similar or analogous cases; an authority to be followed in courts
of justice; forms of proceeding to be followed in similar cases. --Wharton.
[1913
Webster]
Syn: Example; antecedent.
Usage: {Precedent}, {Example}. An example in a similar case which may serve as a rule or guide, but has no authority out of itself.
A precedent is something which comes down to us from the past with the sanction of usage and
of common consent. We quote examples in literature, and precedents in law.
Mutual funds, hedge funds, and other funds, ownership of which may or may not be publicly traded (these funds typically pool money raised from their owner-subscribers to invest in securities)
Soundview Executive Book Summaries - December 2007
This Month's
Featured "Best Business Books" Summarized for
You
Concordville, PA
Soundview Executive Book Summaries has chosen Get There
Early
by Bob Johanson and Corporate Agility by Charles E. Grantham,
James P. Ware and Cory Williamson the
"Best Business Books" for the month
of December 2007. Soundview Editors have just released their
summaries of these books which are only available
direct from
the publisher.
Get There Early by
Bob Johanson
Very few leaders consult a crystal ball or a psychic when
it comes to looking into the future with regards to their
business; nonetheless, they are still responsible for
understanding how the decisions they made yesterday will
affect their organization five years from now. Johansen and
the Institute for the Future provide their insights into the
next decade, and show readers how they too can begin to
navigate the road to the future.
Corporate Agility
by Charles E. Grantham, James P. Ware and Cory Williamson
In order to compete in the flat world where the rules are constantly
changing businesses must be willing to embrace a new strategic model.
This model needs to allow for the understanding of the evolving work
force, the inception of new technologies, and the re-examination of work
place structure. Corporate Agility provides the blueprint for this
revolutionary move forward.
This Month's
Featured Book Review & 'Speed Reviews'
Microtrends
by Mark J. Penn with E. Kinney Zalesne
Join Penn for a
fast-paced ride through more than 70 "microtrends" found in politics,
family life, religion and leisure and how each one is impacting our
lifestyles as well as our business world.
December Speed Reviews
As always, we also review a number of exciting new books in our companion
publication, Speed Reviews. December's selection
includes reviews of Know Can Do!, Get Ahead By Going
Abroad and No Man's Land.
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