Hear the radio version of this story.

To fully appreciate this eclipse story, WPLN recommends the audio version (above).

An experimental musician brought his weather-controlled synthesizer to the roof of Jack Whites Third Man Records in Nashville for the total solar eclipse. The so-called Weather Warlock made a soundtrack based on the atmospheric conditions of wind, temperature and sunlight.

Before the eclipse, those factors created a peaceful droning hum, which echoed out from the record store while also being live broadcast online.

Its a beautiful, clear day. Perfect for an eclipse, came the first dispatch from the machines inventor, New Orleans-based musician Quintron.

He could turn a few dials to alter the sound, but the most obvious sign of what was really in control was visible and audible when the breeze would rise or fall. The whirring wind anemometers would slow, and the pulsing sounds with them.

Quintron said he has slowly improved the Weather Warlock, which operates as an F major chordal drone, over several years. He said he worked on it most diligently after a serious illness, during which time he studied the healing abilities of musical tones.

I got it to work right away, but it was just wretched awful noise. And working out those kinks in the circuitry, that was the biggest challenge, actually, he said. It became apparent early on that this needed to be relaxing music and randomized music from the skies that you could leave on in the background for hours and hours and hours.

With a raft of options for eclipse viewing, hundreds chose Third Man Records, congregating in good spirits in the street while Quintrons tones emanated from the rooftop above.

Synth fanatics like Matt Marcus, of Rockville, Md., quickly recognized the analog methods at play.

As soon as I heard this, Im like, Im going to be hearing filter sweeps all day, its gonna be lovely' you can hear it right now, you can hear the resonance!

And as darkness fell, the soundtrack became deep, halting pulses. Quintron had said he was unsure how the UV sky sensor would react.

As the moon fully blocked the sun, the synth thumped to a halt.

We have reached totality, Quintron declared as cheers rose.

Pigeons circled. A streetlight flickered on. And a moment later, the space-tinged tone resumed.

It was one of those rare moments where this was not about taking a picture. It was about being there. That was definitely worth a 12-hour drive, said Matthew Moseley, 31, of Dallas. The fact that it was obscured at the end was beautiful. I wouldnt have that any other way.

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A Man, A Synth, An Eclipse Hear How The Atmosphere Made Music During Totality - WPLN

WOODSTOCK The Woodstock Jazz Festival, celebrating its 10th year, offered a plethora of opportunities for community members to enjoy the music, including an outdoor concert Saturday morning.

Every time we do the free portion during the morning with the farmers market, its just a sea of people sitting, jazzing up with their neighbors and listening to some great music, Jazz on the Square President Bryan Kyrouac said before the event.

Jazz on the Square hosts the festival along with regular jazz jams in Woodstock. The weekend-long festival sought to celebrate music that captures the spirit of humanity, along with the people who first brought it to town a decade ago. Events took place Friday and Saturday in and around the Woodstock Square.

The jazzing up was not only limited to Woodstock residents, either. People from across McHenry County took advantage of the free concert on a sunny Saturday morning. Jazz listeners young and old relaxed around the Square and shopped the weekly farmers market, which had everything from pet treats to handmade jewelry.

Woodstock resident Ally Tessler comes to the farmers market weekly to buy fresh produce, but she said she was enjoying the live music, too.

The fest attracted loyal attendees and first-time visitors. Sarah Schroeder of Harvard said she had never been to the event before Saturday, and she heard about it online.

It sounded like something fun to do on a Saturday, Schroeder said. We brought some lunch, and were looking forward to relaxing.

McHenry residents Sherry and Melanie Henning, on the other hand, have come to the fest four or five times. They said there always is a wide variety of artists and music, but they enjoy the people and atmosphere the festival brings the most.

Music and nature does the soul great, Melanie Henning said. It keeps you grounded.

Sherry Henning said she liked that the gathering was not too far from her McHenry home.

Its so nice you can have it locally and not have to travel into the city, she said.

Janet Viverito was selling blueberries with Roedger Bros. Blueberries just off the Square, and she said jazz festival weekend is one of her favorite weekends of the outdoor farmers market season. She said it brings new and different customers and breaks up her workday.

Its been busy, Viverito said. I look forward to this every year. Its nice to work and hear the music.

Kyrouac said Jazz on the Square wanted to make this years festival bigger and grander to honor the events founders. Through the years, the festival, jams and other events hosted by Jazz on the Square not only have provided a venue for entertainment, but an outlet for young musicians as well.

Through suggested donations at the door of Stage Left Caf jams, the group has been able to give scholarships to aspiring young jazz musicians to attend summer jazz education camps at leading Illinois universities.

We really encourage middle and high school students to get the experience of jamming in front of a live audience, Jazz on the Square board member Bruce Lane said. Its been really rewarding to watch them grow and move forward.

A group of those young musicians even opened for the festivals headliner Jamey Aebersold, a world-renown jazz educator and saxophonist Saturday night.

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10th annual Woodstock Jazz Festival offers soundtrack to weekly farmers market - Northwest Herald

by: Brian Acton | Credit.comUpdated: Aug 23, 2017 - 1:58 PM

Vacations can be expensive theres the cost of travel itself, as well as lodging expenses and all the money you drop once you get where youre going. When its all said and done, you could potentially spend thousands of dollars on a getaway.

But aside from emptying our wallets, vacations can help us decompress and cut back on stress. But theres a way to enjoy the same result without having to overspend on a vacation. Heres how you can save money by achieving epic relaxation without ever leaving your hometown.

Read more:This one song can reduce stress by up to 65%

Modern technology keeps us continuously plugged in, something many people tie to causing highstress levels. Think about it: Your boss can nowemailyou when yourehome, and social media can constantly bombard us with information.

It can be beneficial to step away from digital communications once in a while.To help you relax, considerturning off the TV, smartphones and computer at least a few evenings a week, if you can.At the very least, you can try to remove tech from your bedroom so that you can wind down before going to sleep, as research has shown that the light from screens throws off our sleep cycles and melatonin production.

Theres a reason we go on vacations to relax. Perhaps we find it easier to unwind in a place we dont associate with work or home responsibilities. But you can establish a place at home thats used just for relaxing and in time your mind can start to associate that place with a calm, tranquil mindset.

The exact nature of your relaxation space depends on your resources and preferences. You may have a backyard or room to devote to relaxing, or you may only have extra floor space. But whether its a garden patio, relaxation room or beanbag chair next to your bookshelf, you can designate a certain space at home for relaxation.

To help boost the relaxation vibe in that space, consider repaintingcalming colors on the walls, listening to tranquil sounds (relaxing music) or addingaccessories such as plants or Zen sand gardens. You can also try to remove anything from that space that stresses you out like phones, mail and other stressors.

Read more:Time for a change? Here are the 30 least stressful jobs

Massages, spa days and yoga classes are just a few examples of services that can help you relax. Sure, a trip to the spa may be a seen as an unnecessary extravagance, but it is likely lessexpensive than a vacation and could be worth the investment. After all, relaxation professionals can help you recharge and refresh. If this is outside of your budget, there are less expensive alternatives you could consider, too, like finding free yoga instruction videos online or soaking in your tub at home instead of at the spa.

Relaxation doesnt all have to take place within your home. In fact, you can reacquaint yourself with your own neighborhood. Whether youre in the city, country or somewhere in between, your region should have some great attractions you may not have checked out before (or perhaps its just been a while). Try approaching your area from the perspective of a tourist: What would you recommend they try if they were visiting your area?

Whether its hiking, museums or fine dining, you can get avacation-level experience by discovering (or rediscovering) the best your town has to offer. You could develop a new appreciation for your region and find new places to explore and enjoy to boot.

No matter how you decide to relax, whether through yoga, a zen garden or something else, its a good idea you dont overspend after all, you dont want to find a good relaxation tool just to find out its landed you incredit card debt.

Read more:6 ways to maximize a staycation

This article originally appeared onCredit.com.

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4 easy ways to achieve vacation-level relaxation without traveling ... - ActionNewsJax.com

Sex has always been an awkward and uneasy subject to broach in normal American conversation. And yet music, on both a physical and emotional level, has served as an effective art form in expressing sexuality and eroticism. Since the dawn of the rock & roll era, popular music and sex have been and continue to be inextricably linked, accompanied by varying degrees of sensationalism and shock.

But according to Good Booty, a new book by NPR music critic Ann Powers, America's erotic musical history actually dates more than 200 years ago, to the slave era. From there, the book traverses the different historical periods in American history, explaining the evolution of sexually-tinged music from the 1950s male rockers' relationships with their female fans, to the groupie culture during the 1970s and punk rock's conflicting attitudes toward sex.

"I've always been interested in how gender relates to music," Powers, who had the idea for the book a decade ago, tells Rolling Stone. "I've written a lot about women in music. But I've also always been interested in sexuality and eroticism and how that expresses itself through music and how our various debates about that express themselves through music."

While there's no denying the titillation factor in the music and its stars, Good Booty raises larger and important issues, including race, gender, sexism and cultural appropriation. "Historically, music has become this vessel for hidden realities and for expressions of pride and dignity for the most wrongly oppressed in our culture and society," says Powers. "That's how, tragically, we treat eroticism as well. We marginalize it, we try to repress it, we pretend it doesn't exist and we treat it like an evil force. Music has been the place where people who had been treated in that same way can speak."

From the origins of sex in American music to Beyonc's charismatic and confident performances, here are 10 things we learned from Good Booty.

1. The relationship between eroticism and music began in New Orleans in the 1800s.Powers traces the sensual nature of American music and dance back to the lively culture of Nineteenth-century New Orleans, especially in Congo Square. It was an open field where slaves were allowed to dance, a sight that attracted the attention of white spectators. "The heart, soul and libido of American music is New Orleans," says Powers, who describes the city as historically a place of great pleasure and a capital of nightlife. "There was this mix of enslaved people and free people of color. We always have to think about that through the lens of oppression of inequality and slavery, but the joy of it is the mix and the expressions that came through in spite of hardships."

2. Jazz Age-era singer Florence Mills symbolized the new modern womanSlender with a distinct and boyish-looking appearance the African-American singer and actress Florence Mills, who died in 1927 at the age of 31, was a different kind of star. According to Powers, she represented the transformative possibilities of the Twenties, a period when sexuality in American culture was blossoming. The author writes that Mills, who was famous for her role in the Broadway musical Shuffle Along, had a quality of irresistible naturalness that expressed "overt sexual longing," which made her relatable to audiences. "She represents the new era," explains Powers. "She was not vocally the same as previous stars. She had a kind of different physicality, she's youthful and modern. She was a huge star and she's almost completely forgotten."

3. Gospel music conveyed erotic as well as spiritual joyIn their voices and performances, gospel artists during the first half of the Twentieth century reconciled spiritual and personal longing, or the sacred and the profane. Power cites various examples of this "spiritualized eroticism": from composer Thomas Dorsey's gospel standard "Take My Hand, Precious Lord"; the powerful singing of Dorothy Love Coates; the charismatic, even sexy, performances of male gospel vocal groups. "Gospel music was a secret line of communication not only for erotic expression but crucially for expressions of freedom," Powers says, "which in the African-American community stemmed from spirituals and carried on the sounds and customs of the African diaspora. It wasn't shocking to learn that many fundamental expressions of what we'd call sexy like the way Elvis moved or the way rock bands interacted with their female audiences could be found in gospel music in that golden age."

4. Despite their sexual charisma, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison faced resistance within the 1960s counterculture"The erotic breakthroughs of these cultural appointed savior-fools were doubled from the beginning by humiliation, censure, and defeat," Powers writes of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and the Doors' Jim Morrison, three major rock stars of the late 1960s known for their incendiary live performances. Powers looks at how Hendrix struggled to transcend the racial and sexual stereotypes as he played to mostly white audiences; how Joplin's excessive personality and lifestyle was too much for people to handle; and how Morrison bought into his own myth as a sex symbol but also deflated it. ("Wielding his penis as a weapon...he always realized how flabby that sword inevitably became," the author writes of the Doors singer.)

"I think it's important to challenge the mythologies that have arisen around these key figures of the 1960s," says Powers, "because there's a romantic view of the counterculture that it was truly liberating, that if only the Seventies never happened, the hippie flowering would have continued. It's very important to acknowledge that there was a lot of racism and sexism within the counterculture and there was a lot of machismo. So it was interesting when I looked at these figures at how those realities played out in their own lives or has manifested in their own music."

5. Robert Plant's performances mirrored the orgasmic sounds of '70s porn filmsIt is quite apparent that Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant's performances on a number of the band's songs "Whole Lotta Love," "Dazed and Confused," "The Lemon Song" had an erotic, even orgasmic, quality. "Plant engaged pleasure in ways that resembled porn performance," Powers writes. "Like a porn star, Plant was playing a role, but also genuinely feeling its effects; there was a sense he couldn't stop once he was swept up in a song." His musical "money shots" coincided with the emergence of porn chic when hardcore films like Deep Throat and Behind the Green Door entered the mainstream. "Already in the Sixties you had explicit [art] films," says Powers, "but the rise of the porn feature, in particular the sounds of pornography, really affected how average people viewed and heard sexuality in all things."

6. Soft rock served as a musical "how-to" sex manualThe mellow sounds of such soft rock artists as Elton John and James Taylor were the audio equivalent of sexual self-help books like the best-selling The Joy of Sex by employing a gentle and assuring hand in addressing relationships. "It was music made for that moment at the end of the day when you're relaxing with your lady or old man and you're getting into some intimate stuff," says Powers. "So here's music that is very relaxing and that has a soft tone to it but it also pretty much talking directly about having good sex. It's funny to me, since I grew up in the Seventies, that I was listening to all of these songs, like [Starland Vocal Band's] "Afternoon Delight," or [Bread's] "Make It With You," and, oh my goodness, the Captain and Tennille. Come on. That's very dirty stuff."

7. Against the specter of AIDS in the 1980s, pop stars created erotic fantasies through their music and videosThe AIDS epidemic, along with Reagan-era conservatism of the 1980s, "would greatly undermine the openness and sense of liberation that characterized the sexual revolution and its aftermath," Powers writes in Good Booty. Thus, the groundbreaking music and stylized videos by Madonna, Prince and Michael Jackson provided a space for erotic imagination. "They constructed fantasy worlds in their music that were very free while still acknowledging that it was not reality," explains Powers. "Madonna is a true embodiment of this. She is a gift of that imaginative freedom, at a time when it was hard to feel that freedom for a lot of people. The way [Prince] dealt with sexuality in every aspect of his music and performance not just his lyrics but the sound of his music, the way he dressed presented a vision that we all desperately needed."

8. Britney Spears was "the first American sweetheart of the Internet"Britney Spears arrived in the late 1990s as a super-human, machine-like version of a pop star a cyborg of sorts as the country prepared for the turn of the Millennium. With producer Max Martin pumping out catchy pop hits for her, Spears projected a public persona that was somewhere between a "teeny bopper queen and hardcore vixen," as she is described in Good Booty. "Britney's emergence and the emergence of the Internet as the central experience of young people's lives were simultaneous," Powers says. "On the one hand, you have this more mechanistic approach in creating pop music. On the other hand, you have young people interacting with pop culture in a way so that they could master this mechanistic realm and participate in it and they could become cyborgs themselves."

9. Auto-Tune helped T-Pain blur the lines between romantic reality and fantasyAuto-Tune, the controversial pitch correction software tool, played a role in T-Pain's 2005 hit, "I'm 'n Luv (Wit a Stripper)." According to Powers, by electronically manipulating his voice, T-Pain created "a giddy confusion between the flesh and mechanics, calculation and emotion," Powers writes. The song somewhat foreshadowed how we are able to distort our identities daily through technology, particularly on social media. Power says: ""I'm 'n Luv (Wit a Stripper)" [is] a pretty deep song: 'I'm never going to get this girl.' That's what [T-Pain's] voice became...the expression of the tragedy of our inability to transcend our physical and social realities, even when it we feels like we can, because we have so much control over our image."

10. Beyoncrepresents a perfect balance between her sexy public persona and stable private lifeUnlike stars such as Britney Spears and Rihanna, both of whom experienced personal scandal, Beyonc is a rare star who conveys sexuality in her performances, yet also maintains a tight rein on how much of her personal life is up for public consumption and, says Powers, a sense of dignity in the social media age. "Her performances are about setting limits and saying no to being violated," says Powers. "She can get up on the stage and do the same dance that hasn't been done in 200 years in the U.S., derived from the dances that enslaved people were doing in Congo Square. Those dances were originally about dignity and staying free in the face of your oppressors. And she's doing the same thing now. That's why she's the greatest artist of our era."

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'Good Booty': 10 Things We Learned About Sex and Music - RollingStone.com

With this neat little trick you can watch all the filth and depravity you want, even in public!

A while back before taking the Shinkansen from Osaka to Tokyo, I thought it would be a good chance to catch up on some movies Id been meaning to watch. So, with my classic lack of foresight, I loaded a GG Allen documentary onto the old iPad and off I went onto a train tightly loaded with people.

The person who was sitting next to me on that fateful day probably would have really appreciated this little trick that has recently resurfaced in Japan. Using ityou can alter your display to show only white light unless you are wearing a special set of glasses.

Here, Twitter user Yuki has pulled off the effect quite well.

I did it. With this you can surf the net without worrying about prying eyes!!

This bit of magical privacy is achieved through the way typical LCD (liquid crystal display) screens are constructed. Most light from the sun, light bulbs, or that twinkle in your eyes is actually a big messy wad of electromagnetic waves pointing this way and that. This is also the case with the source light for LCDs.

However, these screens also use polarizing filters that work like a Play-Doh fun factory and squeeze out a thin horizontal strip of light. Then, depending on whether the crystals are turned on or not, they will bend the light into a vertical strip that can pass through the second polarizing filter oriented in a vertical direction.

Heres a handy video that illustrates this process to some relaxing music. Actual filters arent really horizontal and vertical but more like 45 degrees and 135 degrees. This is just for simplicitys sake.

What Yuki did was peel off the second polarizing filter from the display of a laptop that was destined for the trash heap.Thats it!

Without its second polarizing filter, only the original tangled mess of white light is seen by the naked eye, but when you slip the filter in front of it the image is revealed. This of course is much easier said than done. Popping open your monitor and monkeying with it runs a considerable risk of damaging it to the point of uselessness.

In the tweet, Yuki is holding an inverted lens from a pair of 3D glasses used at the movies. However, others buy polarizing filters in sheets that you can cut into any shape or size. These filters are widely used in photography to reduce glare and should be fairly easy to find.

In any case you have to be careful, because not all screens are created equal so results may vary. And it probably goes without saying that this only works with LCD screens, so put the screwdriver down and slowly back away from that plasma screen.

The impressive part of Yukis technique was cleanly pulling it off on a laptop. Many people on Twitter are asking how that was accomplished, but as a talented illustrator as well, Yuki decided to put the method in doujin form and sell it during Tech Book Fest in Akiba Square on 22 October.

If you do insist on giving it a try, research it thoroughly before proceeding and use a screen that you can live without.

Otherwise, you can always keep away lookie-loos the way I did on the Shinkansen that one time my neighbor was trying to get an eyeful of my documentary: take off all your clothes and throw feces at them.

Its admittedly low-tech, but highly effective. Thanks, GG!

Source: Twitter/@yk_ichinomiya, NetLab Featured image: Twitter/@yk_ichinomiya

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How you can make a monitor that only you can see with your own special polarized glasses - SoraNews24

A Thatcham-based cheerleading squad could scoop a coveted Pride of Reading Award after receiving no fewer than 16 nominations.

Crimson Heat Tigers are one of the UKs premier cheerleading teams with multiple national and international championship wins.

And on May 7 in Orlando, Florida, they pipped the Americans to the post by becoming the 2017 Summit Junior World Champions.

Chairman Gary Ayckbourn, 48, said: Crimson Heat was set up seven years ago in 2010, with only 10 girls, no equipment and a simple vision of trying to focus on the positives that sport brings building a winning team mentality.

"Over the years, we have been able to prove that with the right mental attitude, hard work, determination and teamwork, you can achieve anything.

The squad boasts five teams, with more than 100 members, aged from five to 25, the majority being from Reading and some as far afield as Bristol and Essex.

But their success is not just about beating the Americans at their own game, as many of the nominations for the Crimson Heat Tigers are for how the coaches and volunteers look after well-being of their team members.

Mum Claire Lunnon, from Padworth, said: Coaches Gareth Green and Delph Ayckbourn deserve to be named Community Champions as Crimson Heat are an amazing, inspiring cheerleading team that support, mentor, encourage and young girls in the community.

First and foremost, they ensure the children are performing well at school and then they take them under their wing and train them to become young athletes.

My shy six-year-old daughter is a member and although isn't naturally athletic, the team has taken her under their wing, and each week her confidence builds. A credit to our community.

Cheerleader Hannah Lumbar, from East Reading, also nominated the coaches as Community Champions, saying: I have only been on for one season and it has changed my life.

"They are my family and an inspiration to many people. Crimson Heat do so much charity work that always goes unrecognised but changes lives.

Claire Bird from Thatcham said: The coaches are the kindest, most giving people I've ever met.

"They encourage all abilities and have an SEN [special educational needs] team working alongside Kennet School.

Nominations were also sent in by Debbi Enticknap, from Shinfield, Bristols Rachel Sheldon, Stephanie Tayler and Karen Wichard, James Wild from Newbury, Pauline Dean from Tilehurst, East Readings Hollie Lumbar and Katie Taylor, Martyn Gavaghan and Jon-Paul Baldock, both from Calcot, and Michelle Paice, from Upper Bucklebury.

Proud coaches Glory Carlisle and Megan Maynard also nominated the squad and its volunteers.

On being told of The Crimson Heat Tigers multiple Pride of Reading nominations, Mr Ayckbourn said: Being nominated as a club for the Pride of Reading awards makes me incredibly proud and humble.

"Not for me, but for the recognition of the incredible team people who make up the Crimson Heat management and coaching staff, all of whom are unpaid volunteers, and all of whom give their time and incredible dedication to the ethos of the program and to develop and support these young athletes.

Winning world and national titles is great, and is a tangible recognition of the hard work and dedication of our incredible athletes and coaches.

"However, what makes me the proudest, are the things you dont see.

"The difference we make to these young peoples lives.

"Seeing a young girl walk into the gym with limited confidence and self-esteem and watching them grow and blossom and knowing that we are an integral part of their personal journey.

Of being there for them when they need us most, actively encouraging them to open up about issues that affect them, yet most importantly, being there, night and day if required, to support them, get them the help they need and seeing this through to the end.

The Community Champion Award is sponsored by Broad Street Mall, the Young Person of the Year Award by the University of Reading, and the Volunteer/s of the Year Award by AB Walker.

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To nominate a person or business for one of these awards all you need to do is fill out the form below and wait for our reporter to be in touch.

Please note there is no need to send in multiple nominations for the same person or organisation.

The judges decision on whether a nominee is shortlisted is based on each individual story rather than the number of nominations each person or organisation receives.

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Pride of Reading: Champion cheerleaders prove anything is possible with determination - getreading

One thing is certain in any business not everyone you have to deal with will be like you, or will like you (and vice versa). These people may include one of your business partners, an investor, a key vendor, or even one of your best customers. In my role as a business advisor, I see more and more how business people must bridge these differences to accomplish shared business goals.

We have all heard the stories of business disasters that result from people who are so different that they cant get along. Some of these are legendary, including the Steve Jobs differences with John Sculley. Some are more current, such as the travails of Uber investors challenging founder Travis Kalanick, and the daily political leadership struggles surrounding President Donald Trump.

On a more positive note, as the business world becomes a global space, all of us have to learn to live and work with people of very different cultures, religions, political opinions, as well as different generations and genders. You have to manage and operate within more and more diverse teams, and your success in a career, or in building your business, depends on it.

Thus I was pleased to see these challenges addressed directly in a new book, How to Work With and Lead People Not Like You, by Kelly McDonald, a well-known marketing and communications expert who specializes in multicultural and diversity marketing. She offers a set of strategies and tools for communicating across cultural and other barriers, including people you dont like:

In all cases, its important to be positive and maintain a can-do attitude. People avoid negativity and they are drawn to positivity. You can become a role model, a leader, and an ally for many team members which will lead to breakthroughs and results with even the most non-compatible situations. A positive mental attitude will also improve your health, and add years to your life.

Just remember that you have a business or a career to run. Experts are convinced that a diverse workforce, including people with different values and different perspectives, leads to better decisions and solutions ultimately growing business opportunities, profits, and satisfaction. Diversity isnt going away. Learn to deal with it now, and be the leader you always wanted to be.

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5 Principles For Working With Someone You Don't Like - HuffPost

Attitude is everything. Someone once said life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.

Bottom linethe attitude you have is more about the attitude you have chosen. When you find that you've worked your way into a negative mindset, you have what it takes to also work your way back out. No one can do this for you.A negative attitude is like an automobile without gas. If you dont take the initiative to add fuel to the tank youre not going to get where you want to go.

You can truly change your environment by changing the way you look at it. In an instant, by realizing you have the power, you can reverse the negative force by injecting new positive energy and enthusiasm into your life.

In what kind of environment do you wish to live? In this very moment of time, you can adopt an attitude that will make that environment appear before your very eyes. All it takes is a conscious personal effort.

No doubt much of what happens all around you is out of your control.And yet you can completely control what is most important and meaningful in your life. You can decide for yourself what it all means. And you can choose what to make of it all.

The question that must be answered is Do you want to stay in your current mental state of negativity or are you ready to live life completely on your own terms, with positive purpose and passion?" Thomas Jefferson said, Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.

The decision is yours to make.When you are ready to change things around all thats needed is to change your attitude from negative to positive. Its all about power and you have what it takes to make a significant change in your life and the lives of those who surround your world.

Think about it

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Jim's Gems: Attitude is Everything - Quality Magazine (blog)

When youre five over par after three holes and staring a big water hazard in the face at the next, youd be forgiven for thinking its not going to be your day.

Thankfully for Hazlemere member John Newall, a positive mental attitude helped him win Bridgestone Tyres aptly named Chase Your Dream Trophy final qualifier at the home of England Golf, which takes him to the pro-am of the Bridgestone Challenge at Luton Hoo on September 6.

The 11 handicapper is now just one step away from potentially playing with Lee Westwood, Sergio Garcia or another star of the European Tour at the pro-am of the British Masters supported by Sky Sports at Close House on September 27, as a result.

The newly crowned Male Handicap Golfer of the Year, who qualified with eight other players in the field, will play in the pro-am of the Bridgestone Challenge, the English leg of The Challenge Tour, at Luton Hoo. Theyll be joined by the top nine players from the companion womens championship, making up a total of six teams in the pro-am.

If his team wins there, he will be preparing to tee the ball up at one of the most prestigious courses in England with a household name of the European Tour.

John, who only scraped into the final qualifier at Woodhall Spa in Lincolnshire by the skin of his teeth, said: I was five over after three holes after travelling all this way and was thinking this round could be ending before it had begun.

I got to the fourth hole, hit a magic drive which left me 200yds to the green and pulled out the 5 wood to stick it on the green. There was a water hazard up there but I just went for it and that shot kick started my round.

The Bridgestone Tyres Chase your Dream Trophy is an annual event open to members of England Golfs 1,900 affiliated clubs and features separate competitions for men and women.

The 42-year-old added: Its called the Chase Your Dream Trophy which was appropriate, as this whole experience has been a dream, thanks to Bridgestone and England Golf.

What they have done is incredible. The giant leaderboard, the facilities, the professionalism, everything. Bridgestone has created a competition to give us little guys a chance to live like a professional. They have basically allowed us guys to chase our own dreams.

John said he was already allowing himself to think ahead to the pro-am of the British Masters supported by Sky Sports on September 27.

I was willing Sergio Garcia to win the Masters at Augusta earlier in the year. Now here I am, a round away from possibly playing with him. It really is quite incredible.

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Hazlemere's John Newell is one step away from a date with Sergio ... - Bucks Free Press

In Jackson, Minnesota, there is a man making Massey Ferguson tractors. He works for Agco. Which is huge, apparently: making billions. Tractors are very big business. And now they are making roughly another billion every year, because the guy who is making the tractors is wearing a pair of glasses.

The thing is, they are smart glasses, with a blueprint of the tractor built in to the lens, with instructions about which bit connects to which. He never has to pick up a manual with his greasy hands. They may not even be that greasy, but you can see how its an improvement on the old system. (Suggestion to Ikea: maybe you could consider including a pair of smart glasses with the next bookcase or bed I buy from you).

So its a guy with a very small tool (glasses) making a very big tool (tractor). But eventually he will take the glasses off and go home, job done. Now imagine if he had the lens built in to his eye, maybe like contacts, and he didnt have to take them off any more. Then you would be modifying the human too, you would have created what is popularly known as a transhuman. Not long ago an art student in London was experimenting with a third thumb which she had attached to one hand. Could it speed up tractor making? Its doubtful but if youre already making billions it might be worth a try.

Somewhere out there is a guy with a chip in his head (or neural implant) that enables him to know whether there is any broccoli left in the fridge without ever opening the door.

It sounds trivial but there is something fundamental happening here. I am a great fan of the almond (and other nuts). But I have only recently discovered (thank you, Tony Kuklinski in New Zealand), that the best almond trees are actually grafted on to the back of a peach tree. The peach tree has more resistant roots, I gather. And the almonds are great (I know, I checked). Transhumanism is a bit like that: we are grafting one thing on to another to produce an improvement, in this case the graft is inorganic and the recipient of the graft is organic, namely one of the species we laughingly or in a hopeful, aspirational way (rather like saying Good dog! to a dog that is manifestly not good at all) refer to as Homo sapiens. The point is to make the homo more fully sapient than it (s/he?) was to begin with.

I think it was Jules Verne, in his prescient way, who first predicted the rise of the internet. He also brilliantly predicted newspapers that would be made out of chocolate and you could eat them when you finished reading them. Im sorry that one never quite made it through the reality checkpoint. Verne wrote hymns to technology, which was relatively unusual in the second half of the 19th century. I recall he had serious doubts about bicycles (he actually made a speech to a girls school denouncing them as a threat to civilisation), but on the other hand was very enthusiastic about the submarine.

A Glass apart: Googles foray into eye technology was a bit of a flop (Getty)

Captain Nemo (who appears in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and The Mysterious Island) is one of the first characters in literature to dramatise the merging of man and machine. A curious scientist asks him how his wonderful machine is powered: By a cunning system of levers, he replies. It should be obvious it is his organ playing that powers his vehicle (he really is an accomplished organist), which is to say it is the man himself. There is a perfect reciprocity: Nemo is the Nautilus, the Nautilus is Nemo. They are indivisible (far more so than Iron Man, for example, and his suit: you can always take the suit off again). But to make a mere human fully trans now in the underwater realm you would need to give them gills. Maybe a tail too, I guess.

The transhuman is a chimera, a fusion of two forms, one (as I remember human beings being described from an alien point of view) an ugly bag of water and the other a nice clean circuit board inscribed on silicon (or similar). Its like taking the Nautilus and miniaturising it right down and sticking it in your head so you can go cruising 20,000 leagues (or whatever) without any apparent vehicle. You become the vehicle. Which would be cool. Except I dont know if tractor drivers really want to turn into a tractor and have a little plough sticking out of their rear end, I guess that is never going to catch on.

Having just got hopelessly lost on the road from Wellington to Waipukurau when my phone conked out, I wouldnt have minded having a map app installed in my head (had there been a decent atlas of New Zealand in the car this thought would never have occurred to me but rather like the tractor guy I would then be hands-free and wouldnt have to stop to look at the map). You become a functioning GPS system, in other words, with a screen inside your brain, and will never get lost again (which now I come to think of it, I would regret). Homo sapiens are, at last, on the verge of getting smart.

But, hold on a second, says the philosopher, what ever happened to Socratic ignorance? According to Plato, Socrates had a habit (which could be annoying, depending on your point of view, and of course he was ultimately sentenced to death) of going about checking on people who were supposed to know stuff (tractor makers and suchlike) and concluding that really they knew nothing. Neither did he but at least he knew that he knew nothing, and that was his edge over everyone else. Ignorant, yes, but avowedly, self-consciously ignorant. He at least had the knowledge of ignorance.

Many other philosophers have made similar claims, not excluding ace deconstructionist Jacques Derrida, as Bernard Stiegler has pointed out. Stiegler was a student of Derridas who, as one should, derided the old master. All philosophy, argued Stiegler (having done his time in prison, I recall, for armed robbery), has been anti-tekhn. The guys who were making tractors or the BC500 equivalent (Socrates mentions shoemakers, for example) really did know something and Socrates was just being a bit of a pompous ass for cocking a snook at them. And Derrida was doing something similar by raving on all the time about the text and ignoring (in his Socratic ignorance) anything that smacked of science or technology. Just as anti-tekhn as all the others. Which is ironic considering that writing is a form of technology, just so commonplace (unless you happen to be illiterate) that we have forgotten thats what it is.

Dani Clode, a Royal College of Art student, created a third thumb as part of her MA dissertation project (Dani Clode)

This should have been obvious after the invention of the printing press, what Marshall McLuhan called the Gutenberg Galaxy, and the typewriter. If you ever went into a newsroom of old, you will know what I mean: it was like a factory, with the sound of clacking machines, and printed paper coming off the far end of the assembly line. This may explain why, even when it was parchment or stone tablets, Socrates disdained writing and stuck rather religiously to the oral (and relied on Plato to be his Dr Watson). He understood that the written would have compromised and corrupted the purity of his austere anti-tekhn discipline. Somehow Stiegler managed to get Derrida discussing computers and television, which of course he maintained were all just variations on the text.

There is no polarity between the human and the technological. We are naturally prosthetic beings, says Stiegler. The process of hybridisation simply means that we are becoming more engineered. I can think of a few spare parts I wouldnt mind having right now. Its a phenomenon that Derrida refers to as the logic of supplementarity: writing is a supplement to speech, for example. A guy with a leaf blower is supplementing his ability (extremely limited) to blow leaves around. The odd thing about Desmond Morriss old concept of humankind as the naked ape on account of our relative hairlessness is that it omits the crucial fact that we generally are not naked: we are constantly kitting ourselves out with accessories of one kind or another, perpetually dissatisfied as we are with the initial denuded state. The smart glasses are an advanced type of fig leaf.

In Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari suggests that, with the multiplication and extension of our virtual skills, we are now approaching a final state of secular divinity. It is true that it is possible to imagine (or not even imagine) enhancements to our knowledge such that, for all practical purposes, we are effectively omniscient. I already have students in the classroom correcting me, about two seconds after I have come out with some clearly inadequate answer to a tricky question: But my phone says You too can become a transhumanly annoying fact checker.

As seen on screen: could RoboCop become a reality? (Rex)

Add to that additional supplements: happiness, you only have to press a button, or rather your brain would press the button for you, releasing a rush of endorphins or endocannabinoids, just as soon as there is a hint of boredom creeping up on you. And, for an added bonus, intolerable beauty too, combined with a dash of immortality. A full-body engineering makeover, physical and mental, bionic and cognitive: the temptation to become a Hollywood superhero will surely become irresistible. In the realm of the Matrix, humans will become simulacra of themselves, but very good at running up walls and firing guns upside down. The physicist Frank Tipler, in The Physics of Immortality, reckoned that we will have to wait till the universe collapses in on itself a form of the Big Crunch that he refers to as the Omega Point until we attain godhood (admittedly, we would have to be boiled down into pure silicon). But perhaps we wont have to wait that long.

And alongside the homo deus would presumably stand the homo stultus, the village idiot or holy fool who remains regressively or aggressively unenhanced. Smartness versus dumbness who will win? The knowledge-based economy has only one answer. But somewhere in the interstices of all this information must remain at least the possibility of the kind of creative madness, an inspired stupidity, that lies beyond mere digital shuffling. Ignorance is probably not bliss, it probably contains an almost unbearable sadness and discontent, but it also allows the possibility of innovation in a form that mere knowledge (by definition) cannot know. Jules Verne, having described how a giant gun could shoot a missile at the moon, ridiculed his rival HG Wells for dreaming up an anti-gravity paint, for in effect, cheating: Mais il invente! Stupid dreamers can invent things that the smart guys can only deride.

Back in the Garden of Eden, Yahweh (a classic transhuman, if ever there was one, fully tooled and enhanced, and spending most of his time stored in a cloud, moreover) felt the same way about the humans he was soon sorry he had conjured up: not only were they ignorant (despite tasting of the tree of knowledge), it was impossible to guess what they were going to do next. If a god does not exist, maybe we can invent one.

Andy Martin is the author of Reacher Said Nothing: Lee Child and the Making of Make Me. He teaches at the University of Cambridge.

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