Kenya is safe, Obama's sister tells America Read more at: http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2000134779/Kenya-kenya-is-safe-obama-s-sister-tells-america?utm_source=sarah-okuoro&utm_campaign=september&utm_medium=st

US President Barack Obama’s step sister Dr Auma Obama has advised the Kenya government to open a negotiation forum with foreign countries, which issued travel ban against the country over in security. Dr Obama, who is the Managing Trustee of Sauti Kuu, an organisation that trains youth on wealth creation within rural areas, told the world and Americans that Kenya is a safe place. “At first I felt threatened when I came for holiday in Mombasa from Germany but after staying here for six days I felt safe,” she said adding most of security incidents reported about Kenya are isolated and should not scare tourists. Dr Obama spoke yesterday at Severin Hotel after meeting Mombasa philanthropists to share with them experiences she had learnt in other parts of the World. “What one reads or hears outside is totally different from what is on the ground. As far as I am concerned, Kenya is still the best tourist destination in the world,” said Dr Obama. “As a Kenyan who lives abroad, I feel some of these incidents are overblown by international media because when I am here, I don’t see what I read while I am in Germany,” she said. She said after her own assessment after visiting various places in Coast, she is convinced that Kenya is not a dangerous country after all. She said there was enough security in Mombasa: “I have seen enough security personnel in the beaches I visited. I am surprised to see a different situation from media reports.” See also: How Uhuru plans to counter terror a year after deadly raid She said her organisation which operates in Western region was imparting knowledge to the youth to learn skills on how to create wealth. She said there was enough wealth in rural areas adding that people need to discard the old belief that one can only become rich by moving to urban areas: “Western parts of Kenya experiences good climate and has fertile soil which need to be tapped for better livelihoods.”
Read more at: http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2000134779/Kenya-kenya-is-safe-obama-s-sister-tells-america?utm_source=sarah-okuoro&utm_campaign=september&utm_medium=st

Smart Answers to Stupid Interview Questions

 

A job interview is a weird experience. Sometimes you to go a job interview and meet wonderful, sparky people you could talk with for hours. Other times you show up and your first thought is "I wouldn't work in this toxic waste dump for ten million dollars."

The traditional interview format is a big part of the problem. Somebody came up with the standard, lame interview script sixty or seventy years ago and it's still going strong.

The standard interview script is brainless and insulting and it doesn't even do a good job of separating the best candidates from the worst ones. Still, people who are afraid to try new things don't dare deviate from it.

You know the script I'm talking about. It's the one with these three stupid interview questions in it:

• What's your greatest weakness?
• With all the talented candidates, why should we hire you?
• Where do you see yourself in five years?

It isn't the interviewer's fault that they ask such thoughtless and uncreative questions. Somebody told them to. I wouldn't count out an entire organization just because somebody uses some of these dog interview questions, but if everybody in the joint is stuck in the same sixty-year-old interview-script time warp, you may want to keep looking.

As a manager, you don't have to ask the standard, stupid job interview questions when you interview candidates. Here are ten smarter questions you can use instead.

As a job-seeker, you get to decide how to answer stupid job interview questions when they come up. You can go the good-little-sheepie route and give the standard answer, like this:

THEM: With all the talented candidates, why should we hire you?

YOU: Well, I'm hard-working and I've got a lot of experience, I'm loyal and thrifty and never come late to work, and besides that I walk old ladies across the street.

People tell us all the time "I went to the interview and the words that came out of my own mouth horrified me. I felt like a brown-noser and a suckup. I don't talk that way in real life. I fell into the script and I couldn't climb out!"

We've all been there. You're likely to fall into the good-little-sheepie job seeker script by accident if you don't prepare yourself in advance. You can get off the script and stay human in a job interview, and you'll be happy if you do.

For starters, if you shake up the script and give your interviewer an answer s/he wasn't expecting, you'll force him or her to think. That's good. You'll be more memorable that way, and if the interviewer is horrified that you'd step out of the box, what does that tell you?

It tells you that you don't want that job anyway.

Here are our three stupid interview questions and a choice of two answers for each one. The first answer is the standard sheepie answer, and the second one is for use when your mojo is high and you feel like busting a frame and growing your muscles a little.

Stupid Interview Question: "What's your greatest weakness?"

SHEEPIE ANSWER: "I'm a hard worker, and I can be too hard on myself and other people when I think that either me or somebody else could give a little more to a project."

HIGH-MOJO ANSWER: "I used to obsess about my weaknesses. I used to think I had a million defects that needed correcting, and I read books and took classes to try to improve on them.

Gradually I learned that it makes no sense for me to work on things that I'm not great at, and it makes no sense for me to think of myself as having weaknesses. These days I focus on getting better at things I'm already good at -- graphic design, especially."

Stupid Interview Question: "With all the talented candidates, why should we hire you?"

SHEEPIE ANSWER: "I've been working in this arena for sixteen years and I've got a great track record."

HIGH-MOJO ANSWER: "That's what we're here to figure out, I guess! I can't say that you should hire me.

There might be somebody else who's perfect for the job - you've met the other candidates or will meet them, and of course you know more about the needs here than I do.

I can say this - if this match is meant to be, both of us will know it."

Stupid Interview Question: "Where do you see yourself in five years?"

SHEEPIE ANSWER: "Working hard here or in another Financial Analyst role, with luck moving up to Senior Financial Analyst and being more involved in strategic investments than I've been so far."

HIGH-MOJO ANSWER: "Exploring one of my passions, undoubtedly -- maybe in Finance, or my interest in ecommerce or in an international role. I have a lot of passions!"

You get to decide how far to turn the mojo dial in every interview. You already know how it feels to sit in the chair and play the Good Little Job Seeker. What would happen if you stepped out of the box on your next job interview, and played yourself?

Southernmost point

Palin family in Alaska brawl: 'Alcohol was believed to be a factor'

Police confirm ‘verbal and physical altercation’ took place outside house party in Anchorage, where former governor Sarah Palin was reported to have shouted: ‘Do you know who I am?’

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• Tom McCarthy in New York
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• The Guardian, Friday 12 September 2014 21.53 BST
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Sarah Palin. The Anchorage police department said: ‘We are reviewing the case to determine whether charges will be filed.’ Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

For once, there were no cameras rolling.

Since her ill-fated 2008 run for vice-president, Sarah Palin and her family have been a constant television presence, appearing in their own reality show and, more recently, on her very own Sarah Palin channel.

The most dramatic recent chapter in the Palin story appears, however, to be documented only by witness accounts – and an evolving police report. Alaska authorities are considering filing criminal charges related to a large fistfight said to involve multiple members of the family in the Overview neighbourhood of Anchorage last Saturday night.

Palin family members were present at a party where 20 people ended up in an alcohol-fuelled melee in the front yard, police spokeswoman Jennifer Castro told the Alaska Dispatch News.

Sarah Palin herself got in on the action, ABC News reported in an interview with a party attendee, who quoted the former governor as screaming at unknown combatants: “Do you know who I am?!”

Palin was the 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee and currently is host of Amazing America with Sarah Palin on the Sportsman Channel. She and husband Todd are the parents of five children, at least two of whom were central protagonists in the weekend brawl, according to Alaska politics blogger Amanda Coyne, who wrote:

The owner of the house gets involved, and he probably wished he hadn’t. At this point, he’s up against nearly the whole Palin tribe: Palin women screaming. Palin men thumping their chests. Word is that [daughter] Bristol has a particularly strong right hook, which she employed repeatedly.

The Anchorage police department confirmed on Thursday that a “verbal and physical altercation” had taken place outside the residence, where a party was being held in part to celebrate Todd Palin’s 50th birthday.

“We are still reviewing the case, along with our municipal attorney’s office to determine whether any charges will be filed,” Castro, the police spokeswoman, told the Alaska paper in an email.

“A preliminary investigation by police revealed that a party had been taking place at a nearby residence and a fight had broken out between multiple subjects outside of the residence,” she added.

“None of the involved parties wanted to press charges at the time of the incident and no arrests were made at the scene. Alcohol was believed to have been a factor in the incident. Some of the Palin family members were in attendance at the party.”

In a Facebook message posted on Sunday wishing her husband a happy birthday, Sarah Palin said she had been “travelling” on Saturday.

In Coyne’s account, the fight began after Track Palin, Palin’s oldest son and an Iraq war vet, arrived at the party in a “stretch Hummer” and saw an ex-boyfriend of his sister Willow, 20, with whom he traded words.

The next day, in an unrelated incident, a 25-year-old man from Florida was arrested on felony stalking charges after he climbed on to a third-floor balcony of Bristol Palin, the family’s eldest daughter said to have a good right hook. The man had sent Bristol Palin “approximately 1,000 Facebook messages”, she told police.

Palin is unpopular in the state she formerly led. A Public Policy Polling survey last month found that only 36% of voters in the state have a favourable opinion of Palin, versus 55% who view her negatively.

"I owe America a global apology. Because John McCain, through all of this, John McCain should be our president."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/12/sarah-palin-apology_n_5810808.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000013

NTSB: Crew Mistakes, Fatigue Caused UPS Crash

The August 2013 crash of a UPS cargo plane short of the runway in Birmingham, Alabama, was caused by a combination of crew errors and pilot fatigue, the National Transportation Safety Board said in its final accident report released on Tuesday.

 

UPS disagrees with the findings, saying the carrier provides adequate rest for crews and that fatigue should not have been included as a factor. The cargo airline and its pilots union were both kicked off the accident investigation team last month after publicly sparring about the cause of the crash before the official report was made public.

 

Ultimately, however, the NTSB determined that crew mistakes were the primary reasons for the accident, which killed both pilots when their Airbus A300-600 slammed into the ground less than a mile from the runway during a pre-dawn approach to Birmingham. Specifically investigators faulted the pilots for failing to make proper altitude and descent rate callouts and for not aborting the landing attempt during the unstabilized approach.

 

As they prepared for the flight the pilots can be heard on the cockpit voice recorder complaining of being tired and saying that cargo pilots should have been included in new federal rest and duty-time regulations. 

 

A UPS spokesman, however, rejected the notion that fatigue played a role in the crash.

 

"It is difficult to understand how the NTSB reached its conclusion regarding fatigue related to night flying when the pilot had not flown in 10 days and the first officer was off eight of the previous 10 days," the company spokesman told The Birmingham Courier-Journal.

 

Based on the investigation, the Safety Board issued 20 recommendations, including calls for the FAA to require crews to brief each other on fatigue before each flight and for UPS and its pilots union to work together to develop a better rest-management program.

Read more at http://www.flyingmag.com/technique/accidents/ntsb-crew-mistakes-fatigue-caused-ups-crash#g6TVVsJBS3Rae5Zy.99

Magneto Ignition Systems

The fuel air mixture in the combustion chamber needs to be ignited at the correct moment to ensure efficient combustion and power generation by the engine. This is the job of the ignition system, be that the old fashion magneto of the good old days or a modern fully electronic microprocessor controlled FADEC system we see more and more each passing year.

For obvious safety reasons the ignition system may not rely on the aircraft electrical system and must be dual and each system operates one of the two spark plugs in each cylinder.

These ignition systems apply to AVgas (spark ignited) engines and not to diesels, which are compression ignited engines.

Before we head on to sophisticated electronic ignitions we will discuss the good old magneto ignition from a bygone era. Mainly as you will still find these in the original and certified aircraft engines.

Magnetos are basically small generators with a transformer and a breaker switch and include a distributor to guide the high voltage to the spark plugs, and this will be the subject of this page.

Ignition

The sole purpose of the ignition system is to supply a high energy spark at the right moment thereby igniting the fuel air mixture so that the engine can start its power stroke. Such a system consists of a number of components:

• The source for the spark, either electronic or mechanical (magneto)
• Distributor to direct the spark to the correct cylinder/plug
• High tension leads to conduct the spark
• Two spark plugs per cylinder which ignite the mixture

Magnetos

These use a strong magnet rotating inside a coil. The magnetic field generates a voltage in the coil which is transformed to a higher voltage by a secondary coil with much more windings than the primary coil. A breaker contact in the primary coil circuit interrupts the flowing current and this interruption causes the magnetic field to collapse thereby generating a very high peak voltage in the secondary coil. This peak voltage is then conducted to the correct spark plugs by the distributor and high voltage leads.

Two magnetos are connected in such a way that one drives the top spark plugs and the other the bottom plugs on the engine (LEFT and RIGHT really means TOP and BOTTOM). The magnetos generate power independently of the aircraft electrical system, so that in the event of flat battery during flight the engine will keep running.

Timing

Timing is of the essence here, the breaker points (with parallel capacitor) are driven by a small cam and opening at the correct crankshaft angle. That's usually 25° BTDC (before top dead center). Also parallel connected to the breaker contact and capacitor is the ignition switch, either L or R. Which effectively stops the spark when closed.

Distributor

The distributor is also part of the magneto. Its function is to guide the high energy voltage to the correct spark plug through one of the high tension leads. As each cylinder fires every two revolutions of the crankshaft, the rotor in the distributor must therefore rotate at half the crankshaft speed.

Harness and Spark plugs

The ignition harness shields the high voltage and conducts it to the spark plugs, often bound together. The wires are screened or in a metal braid or conduit to shield the radio against the high frequency ignition interference.

A spark plug has a central electrode and a metal body which are screwed into the cylinder. Ceramic insulation is used to insulate the central electrode from the engine. Built into the spark plug is a resistor giving a short duration spark and protection against corrosion of the electrodes; it also suppression radio frequency interference to some degree.

Two spark plugs and separate ignition circuits are used per cylinder for redundancy, safety and better ignition and combustion of the mixture.

Impulse coupling

During starting of the engine, its crankshaft rotates very slowly (around 120 RPM) and the magnetos at 60 RPM. Generated voltage is very low at that point. The ignition timing is normally fixed at 25° BTDC, and this is too early at this low RPM. Should a cylinder fire it would probably cause a violent kickback (rotates momentarily in the wrong direction) and that will damage the starter and maybe more.

A device called a impulse coupling is used to retard the ignition timing to almost at TDC and an acceleration of the magnet (with a coiled spring) in the magneto to spice up the voltage to help igniting the mixture at TDC. When the engine fires and its RPM rises the timing is set back to 25° for normal operation (between 500 and 2700 RPM). The moment the engine fires and runs idle the impulse coupling detaches and timing is reset to 25° BTDC

On some engines a vibrating system is used to create a shower of sparks with the left magneto when starting during these low RPM operations.

http://www.experimentalaircraft.info/articles/aircraft-engines-ignition.php