Update on Work Disruptions

Plenty of noise and disruptions today - Hammering and vibrations as workmen replace more rotten wood. These pictures may give you an idea of what it's like here right now.

Our patio and back door from the outside - That trench is 4 feet deep.

Looking out at what used to be my tranquil nature scene.

USA and the Middle Finger

This one is a couple of years old, but perhaps even more true today. It's Indra Nooyi's remarks that caused a bit of a stir in 2005.

BusinessWeek:
"As I grew up and started to study geography, I remember being told that the five fingers can be thought of as the five major continents: Europe, Asia, Africa, and North and South America.

• Think of the little finger as Africa. Africa is the little finger not because of Africa's size, but because of its place on the world's stage. From an economic standpoint, Africa has yet to catch up with her sister continents. And yet, when our little finger hurts, it affects the whole hand.
• Our thumb is Asia: strong, powerful, and ready to assert herself as a major player on the world's economic stage.
• Our index, or pointer finger, is Europe. Europe is the cradle of democracy and pointed the way for western civilization and the laws we use in conducting global business.
• The ring finger is South America, including Latin America. The ring finger symbolizes love and commitment to another person.
• The long middle finger for North America and the United States. As the longest of the fingers, it really stands out. The middle finger anchors every function that the hand performs and is the key to all of the fingers working together efficiently and effectively.

However, if used inappropriately -- just like the U.S. itself -- the middle finger can convey a negative message and get us in trouble. You know what I'm talking about.

Unfortunately, I think this is how the rest of the world looks at the U.S. right now. Not as part of the hand -- giving strength and purpose to the rest of the fingers -- but, instead, scratching our nose and sending a far different signal."

Not really correct as far as hand analysis interpretations, but I think I'd agree with the bit about the middle finger's signal right now...

New Addition for Blog

I found something new for blogs (well, new for me anyway) called payperpost - It's allows a blogger to write about specific topics at an advertiser's request. Some bloggers are using it to earn a bit of extra money in their spare time. I thought I'd give it a try also - For me it gives new topics or subject ideas to write about.

When I look at payperpost it seems like a good way to optimize this blog and write about a wider variety of topics that relate to the hands. It took a bit of time to go through the setup and learn the requirements, but then is easy enough to use.

Advertisers are able to set minimum requirements for a blogger who posts on their requested topics - They can insist on a minimum page rang and alexa rank, as well as relying on feedback from other advertisers. All in all it seems like a great option to get highly targeted traffic - A bit expensive perhaps, but looks well worth it. Even if I don't keep using payperpost for blog topics, I'll probably start with it as an advertiser.

Any time the posts on this blog are with payperpost, you'll see a "Sponsored by PayPerPost" button at the bottom. That way you'll know which posts were paid topics.

Fortune Telling May Become Legal in Casper

While some cities are beginning to crack down on fortune telling, the 1929 law banning it in Casper, Wyoming may be getting repealed.

ABC Local News 8: The Casper ordinance banning fortunetelling for profit dates to 1929. Shop owner Nella Forest says so far, no one has arrested her -- or anyone else she knows -- for fortunetelling.

She says if a law's not being enforced, it needs to be taken off the books.

Forest also is a Wiccan, and says the law demeans her beliefs and feels like "discrimination."

The City Council has agreed to look into repealing the ordinance.

Animal Hands - Ostrich Feet

It can be fascinating to observe animals' hands and paws, and then apply palmistry and hand analysis interpretations to the characteristics. The shape, size and structure of the hands/paws/feet may give some insight into how each animal lives and thinks.

When my daughter and I went to the zoo on Wednesday I was looking at animal paws, and couldn't help but notice that the ostriches had only 2 toes. Apparently they are the only bird with just 2 toes (and also the fastest land animal on 2 feet). An ostrich's feet look as if the inner toe was cut off - For a bird, where the thumb would be. No thumbs would indicate a serious lack of intellect, and according to the zoo ostriches are perhaps the dumbest bird of all. (Their brain is even smaller than one of their eyes.)

Environmental Disaster Close to Home

A river of crude oil came from a ruptured pipeline here in Burnaby just a few hours ago, and the oil is flowing into the Burrard Inlet. (I live in Burnaby a few miles away from where it occurred.)

CanWest News Service
Published: Tuesday, July 24, 2007

BURNABY, B.C. — A ruptured pipeline under a Burnaby highway sent thousands of litres of oil into Vancouver’s Burrard Inlet Tuesday afternoon.

Several eyewitnesses reported seeing the oil spray some 20 metres into the air, then flow as a "river" of oil pouring down into the ocean inlet that separates Vancouver and its suburbs from North Vancouver.

At least one home appeared to be covered in crude oil.

The oil was gushing for nearly half an hour before crews were able to stop the flow.

Already there are predictions of a significant environmental disaster.

I'll have to see if they're going to need cleanup volunteers.

Palmistry Books - Don't Believe Everything You Read

One of the biggest problems in getting palmistry more recognized and established as a science rather than a pseudoscience is due to book publishers, the content they select for publication, and their methods of promotion. A lot of questionable content is readily available on the market, and being promoted quite effectively.

Book publishers are concerned with what they can sell, not with ensuring accuracy of all printed material. This means that as long as they can move enough copies it really doesn't matter to them whether or not the content is truly accurate, or just more examples of the Forer Effect and subjective validation passed off as fact.

For example, I received an email from a book publisher promoting a newly revised palmistry book. (Times have sure changed - Publishers used to send me free copies...) Their email and press release state that it's a "book regarded as the standard in the art of palmistry" and "widely regarded as the definitive guide to palmistry". Well, I suppose those quotes are true inside their own publishing house at least!

Submitting Blog to Directories

I got so caught up with writing this blog that I forgot the part about getting it listed in directories. A lot of work finding them and then submitting, but at least I found Robin Good's list of blog directories. Should take me a couple of weeks to get through that list.

Fingerprint Loops May Not Relate to Alzheimer's

From time to time I get questions from people who are very concerned that they have 10 ulnar loops on their fingerprints, and they have heard that 8 or more loops shows a risk for Alzheimer's. This bit of misinformation originates from the Arch Neurol, Vol. 42, No. 1. (January 1985), pp. 50-54.

"Fingerprint dermatoglyphic patterns in 50 patients with presumed senile dementia of the Alzheimer type (SDAT) were compared with a control group of 50 patients with other neurologic diseases and with population norms. Patients with SDAT showed a significantly increased frequency of ulnar loops on their fingertips and a concomitantly decreased frequency of whorls and arches. A pattern of eight or more ulnar loops was found significantly more often in patients with SDAT (72%) than in the control group (26%). Fourteen patients with SDAT had ulnar loops on all ten fingers; this occurred in four patients in the control group. Radial loops on the fourth and fifth digits were more prevalent in patients with SDAT."

I have several problems with this study.

1. The study used only 100 people total - 50 in the Alzheimer's group and 50 in the control group with other neurological diseases and with population norms. The results cannot be considered statistically accurate with such a small group until the same results are duplicated with further test groups.


2. According to the Avdeychik/Lagerstrom fingerprint coding system (which compares fingerprint combinations of more than 50,000 individuals) a radial loop on only the 4th and 5th digits is coded as R:4/X or R:X/4 (X can be any number). This shows a definite congenital health anomaly, regardless of what the other fingerprint patterns are - The ulnar loops are irrelevant.


3. Fingerprint whorls show an elevated risk for heart attack (myocardial infarction) but loops do not. Heart attacks are a risk at a much younger age than Alzheimer's, so some of the people with whorled prints die before they can develop senile dementia. This means that there would naturally be a higher occurrence of ulnar loops among the elderly.


4. With the human body, it's a matter of "use it or lose it". Just as with the muscles, the brain will lose efficiency if it's not used enough. People with whorled prints are more focussed and driven in their own specific areas of interest, so they tend to keep challenging their mind well into old age much more than people with ulnar loops.

For the reasons stated above, simply having 10 ulnar looped fingerprints DOES NOT appear to indicate much of a heightened risk for Alzheimer's, and even that risk is minimized by continuing to challenge the brain.

Work Disruptions Continue

It's amazing how quickly noise sensitivity developed from the renovations happening to our home. The outer stucco and walls had to be completely removed, and about the only way to do that is with a circular saw, hammer and crowbar. The noise and vibration inside have been rather intense this week - Even when it's quiet while the workers take a break, it's like waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I'm so glad for the meditation training I've done - Can't even imagine how I could have continued working during this noise otherwise. (Surprisingly, my hands are still very steady while the construction goes on, with no tremors or finger twitches.) It will certainly be nice when the renovation work is all finished.

Hand Transplants - Bionic Hand Improvements

David Gow set another milestone in hand transplants with his latest refinements to his bionic hand design - Now the fingers bend just like on a real hand. (David Gow is the same person mentioned in my "Hand Transplant Options" article of November 2000.)

BBC News: Milestone for unique bionic hand

The thumb and fingers can move and grip just like a human hand and are controlled by the patient's mind and muscles.

It was invented by David Gow and was designed and built by Touch Bionics, which is based in Livingston.

The technology has been tested by a number of people, including US soldiers who lost limbs in the Iraq war.

Mr Gow, who is the director of rehabilitation engineering services at NHS Lothian, told the BBC's Good Morning Scotland programme: "It's the first hand to come to the market that's actually had bending fingers just like your own hand."

It is hoped that this bionic hand design will be available on the health service within 2-5 years.

Nominated for Bloggers Choice Awards

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Show your support and cast your vote - Remember to vote for this blog in all 4 categories!

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Hand Positions to Amplify Meditation Effectiveness

One of the most overlooked parts of meditation is how to use specific hand positions to amplify the potency and effectiveness. You can't be curled up in fetal position hyperventilating and meditate well - Your body posture and breathing must be correct. In just the same way, you can't get the full benefit of a meditation unless you use a complementary hand position.

Hand positions are especially effective with meditations specific for increasing psychic powers or mental control - http://www.humanhand.com/ebooks/powermeditations.html

palmistrymeditationpsychichands

Website Outage Today

The HumanHand.com website and simian line forum are currently unavailable due to a server issue. At this time it is still unknown how long the outage will last.

Whatever Happened to Merlinscope?

One of the first palmistry software programs I ever saw was called "Merlinscope" - It was a large photocopy machine connected to basic hand analysis software, and located in several shopping malls. It came out in 1987, and was run by Merlin Systems Ltd. You made a copy of the left palm for men, or the right palm for women, and for about $25 you got back a printed 5 paragraph analysis. I still have the analysis done for myself and my wife from back before we were married.

Even today when I read over my Merlinscope analysis, it still seems uncannily accurate. Better, in fact, than any other palmistry software I've seen since. Some of the details could perhaps be attributed to the Forer Effect. Most people received very similar content to each other in their reports, but not me. Here are a few pieces from my analysis:

"...able to work out simple solutions to very complicated problems."

"...enables you to make new discoveries"

"...rather impatient and rebellious"

"...the opposite sex fails to understand you"

"...willing to sacrifice your personal wealth and career for the sake of love"

"...you have your own way of thinking and this baffles others"

"...others may consider your behaviour rather odd"

"...your talent is yet to be discovered"

Pretty much sums me up. I haven't seen a Merlinscope booth for years - Too bad. Anyone know if the're still around somewhere?

Itching Palms and Money

There's an old superstition that when your palms itch it means money. An itching left palm means money to be paid out, while an itching right palm is money coming in. To stop the left palm from itching, the superstition says to rub the palm on a piece of wood.

There may be something to this old tale, since itching palms often show new internal energy moving through the hands. The left hand is the passive or receptive, and the right is the active. When the left palm itches, look for new energy or services coming into your life - Of course this will probably cost you some money. The right palm itching means energy or services going out - Work you might get paid for.

Touching or rubbing wood is a very old method for transferring or releasing unwanted energy buildup (thus expressions like "touch wood"), so if your left palm itches, try rubbing it on the corner of a table - If you don't get a splinter, perhaps you'll save some money!

eBooks Section Added to Website

Finished the new eBooks section on the website. Now you can download eBooks and check for updates all on 1 page. http://www.humanhand.com/ebooks

Still have to link it in on the website, but at least the new section is done.

Work Disruptions

Our building restoration work is continuing, and starting today the noise level became disruptive. Some heavy equipment and scaffolding being set up outside. Unfortunately the noise is far too loud to be able to do any private hand analysis here, and the project will continue for the rest of the year.

I've had to cancel all my private readings scheduled for weekdays and Saturdays, and rebook them to just Sundays. Quite the hassle...

Website Work

More website work today. I'm putting together a new page for all the different eBooks, with download instructions and when they were last updated - Everything all in one place. Lots of work, but hopefully it can be finished in the next day or 2.

My Dad's Hands

Dad's 70 birthday was yesterday - We had tons of fun celebrating this milestone.

Take a close look at the picture and you'll see how my fascination with the hands all started.

Palmistry on MySpace

I finally got onto MySpace awhile ago in order to comment on a couple of blog posts there. Unlike FaceBook, palmistry is a common enough topic on MySpace where a search shows more than 2,300 results. Unfortunately, most of those pages have almost no good information whatsoever. There's a lot of blog spam and cheap promoting, and plenty of plagiarism. And page after page has ideas and teachings that are just plain wacko.

After getting onto MySpace, I quickly received 2 messages from people I don't know - Both were spam.

I certainly would not recommend MySpace as a way of finding any reliable information on palmistry, or for connecting with people interested in the art. See you on FaceBook instead!

Dad's 70th Birthday

My dad was the one who sparked my lifetime fascination with the hands. He'll be 70 years old tomorrow. It will also be my 16th wedding anniversary.

Happy Birthday Dad!
Happy Anniversary Frances!

Busier and Busier

I take great satisfaction in doing all my website and email work myself. Lately, however, the workload has been getting way too big to manage. Even with long work days I still currently have a backlog of roughly 60 emails in my inbox that need to be answered (with more coming in each day), not to mention the website updates that have to be taken care of, course students, private readings and corporate events.

Looks like pretty soon I'll have to give in and hire an assistant.

Power Meditations eBook

Finished up another new eBook - This one's called "Power Meditations: Using Meditation to Increase Mental Power". It covers different meditation techniques and the hand positions used to get maximum benefit. It can be downloaded from http://www.humanhand.com/ebooks/MentalPower.exe

This one is NOT a free eBook, but I am giving away copies to the first 5 people who add a comment to this blog post. Just post your comment then email me at ken@humanhand.com and I'll send you the codes you'll need to open this eBook.