Wednesday, February 28, 2024

The Art of War (Sun Tzu's Pieces of Leadership Advice)

Sun Tzu's Pieces of Leadership Advice

 "To fight and conquer in all our battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting." - Sun Tzu*
                                                  Researched by Dr Abe V Rotor

 
  • He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.
  • In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.
  • Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.
  • A leader leads by example, not by force.
  • You have to believe in yourself.
  • Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.
  • If your enemy is secure at all points, be prepared for him. ...
  • The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting. ~

Monday, February 26, 2024

Photography: Capture the fleeting sun in the sky

                                                                     Photography:

 Capture the fleeting sun in the sky
Dr Abe V Rotor


Unedited photo taken in Virac, Catanduanes, with Sony 

Cybershot camera, 7.2 mega pixels. October 20, 2011


Never aim at the sun, never, said my mentor,
     a rule I never forgot;
Photos I took, the sun at my side or back,
     became pride of my art.

But art with no rules grew, and took over the helm;
     take it from artists Picasso
and Van Gogh, their masterpieces with the sun
     burning in deep arctic blue.

Take art deeper,  the soul suffers when the body
     is hale yet unwilling;
and triumphs in the works of Milton and Monet,
     their inner sun shining.~


The sun through the trees is a favorite subject of photography.  
Photos taken by the author at the San Vicente Botanical Garden,
San Vicente, Ilocos Sur ~ 

Friday, February 23, 2024

Macro Photography of Insects with an Ordinary Camera (Article in Progress)

Macro Photography* of Insects
with an Ordinary Camera, or Cellphone Camera

Dr Abe V Rotor

Macro photography is extreme close-up photography, usually of very small subjects and living organisms like insects, in which the size of the subject in the photograph is greater than life size. Wikipedia

Part 1 - The  Obnoxious Cotton Stainer (Dysdercus cingulatus)

   

Dysdercus cingulatus is a species of true bug in the family Pyrrhocoridae, commonly known as the red cotton stainer. It is a serious pest of cotton crops, the adults and older nymphs feeding on the emerging bolls and the cotton seeds as they mature, transmitting cotton-staining fungi as they do so. 

                                    How do you know a True Bug? 

  Colorful early nymph stage of Harlequin Bug (Murgantia histrionica) . 
Right, last instar of nymph showing a pair of developing wing pads.

 The brown marmorated stink bug (Halyomorpha halys) is an insect 
in the family Pentatomidae.

Insects are often called bugs. But the real bugs belong to Hemiptera, the Order of insects to which the Stink bug, bedbug, rice bug (atagia), black bug and green bug (Nezara viridula) are members.

True bugs emit a characteristic odor, specially when crushed. This is a practical way of telling an insect if it is really a bug. Bugs secrete a caustic substance that is corrosive to the eye and skin. (If affected, immediately wash with warm water and mild soap.)


Bugs undergo incomplete metamorphosis - egg, nymph, and adult. Both the immature and mature insects have sucking mouth parts. They subsist on the sap of plants, resulting in stunting, defoliation and death of the host plants.


The term "bug" is a spy term. Bugged, means "being secretly monitored", usually with an electronic device, such as a miniature microphone.


Bugged could mean an exaggerated zeal for something (camera bug). It could mean the failing of a machine, or the compactness of a car (buggy). Think of the surreptitious nature and other adaptive ways of the bedbug.(Cimex lectularius) PHOTO ~

Part 2 - Beetles -  Little Gladiators

Dr Abe V Rotor

 
       A.  Iridescent* Asian Jewel Beetle (Sternocera aequisignata)
*Iridescence (also known as goniochromism) is the phenomenon of certain surfaces that appear to gradually change color as the angle of view or the angle of illumination changes. Examples of iridescence include wings of certain insects, feathers, butterfly wings and seashells as well as certain minerals. 
                           
          B. Click Beetle - Living Catapult: Click Beetle (kuddo         Ilk) Alaus spp. Family Elateridae, Order Coleoptera*

C. Rhinoceros Beetle - Male Oryctes rhinocerus


Part 3 - Preying Mantis 
 Dr Abe V Rotor

A preying mantis (Mantis religiosa L) catches its prey 
with specialized raptorial appendages.   

A gravid Green Preying Mantis

Part 4 - Moths: Masters of Camouflage and Mimicry
Dr Abe V Rotor

Sphinx Moths:

Polymorphism or Diversity? These three Sphinx moths have strong basic morphological characteristics, including size and color that at first glance one would not suspect their differences. The shape and position of their antennae are different, so with their "hoods". Another difference lies in the markings on their bodies and wings. In some cases a pair of eyes appears real to a would-be predator.

Halloween Moth (Brahmaea sp)

Part 5 - Other Live Specimens 

A. Phosphorescent Caterpillars

Glowing caterpillars feast on the leaves of ilang-ilang (Cananga  odorata)

B. Singing cicadas.  How many are they in this photo? Only the male sings and attracts the female. A beautiful song brings in two or more potential mates such as the case in this photo. 

 

C. Katydid, (left) a long horned grasshopper (Phaneroptera furcifera), and the field cricket (Acheta bimaculata) are the world's most popular fiddlers in the insect world.

                          D. "King Spider" (Gagambang Hari) - Argiope aurantia
Author takes a close look into its intricate hanging web. ~
                  

33 BOOKS: The Living with Nature Center Collection

33 BOOKS: The Living with Nature Center 
San Vicente, Ilocos Sur
Dr Abe V Rotor

Organize your home library, retrieve your books and dust them off from the selves, share them with the children and grownups as well. Books make a fine library and part of a family museum. Open them to your community and local schools, link them with the computer.  Here are some thirty-three books I have made available for students and guests who would come now and then for their research, thesis, assignments - or simply curious to scan a page or two  - and rekindle interest in books. 
       

"Books, the epics of Homer, stories of the Grimm Brothers, One-thousand-and-one Nights of Scheherazade, distilled from oral literature passed through generations to our present time.

Books, written ahead of their time - Galileo's astronomy, Darwin's evolution, Martin Luther's Protestantism ignited dis-pleasure of the Church.

Books, bedtime stories, baby's introduction to the world, legends and fantasies that take young ones to the land of make believe.

Books, the record of ultimate scholarship, are the epitome of the greatest minds in thesis and dissertation, theories and principles.

Books, the precursor of the Internet, the framework of the i-Pod, Tablet, Galaxy, and other gadgets that man becomes virtually a walking encyclopedia." - AV Rotor, Books the Greatest Treasure of Mankind

  
"One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time." – Carl Sagan
 
  
“Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it's a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it's a way of making contact with someone else's imagination after a day that's all too real.” ― Nora Ephron

 
"Show me a family of readers, and I will show you the people who move the world." – Napoleon Bonaparte

  
"A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors." – Charles Baudelaire
     
  
“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.” ― Harper Lee

“There is no friend as loyal as a book.”― Ernest Hemingway

  
“The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest (people) of the past centuries.” ― René Descartes

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.” ― Cicero

  
“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” ― C.S. Lewis

"Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people – people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book." ― E.B. White

 
“I think books are like people, in the sense that they’ll turn up in your life when you most need them.” ― Emma Thompson

“I guess there are never enough books.” ―

 
“Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.” ― Henry David Thoreau

“For my whole life, my favorite activity was reading. It’s not the most social pastime.” ― Audrey Hepburn

 
“You will learn most things by looking, but reading gives understanding. Reading will make you free.” ― Paul Rand

  
“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! -- When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.” ― Jane Austen

“I can feel infinitely alive curled up on the sofa reading a book.” ― Benedict Cumberbatch
 
“The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature, to those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself.”― Eleanor Roosevelt
 
  
“Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.” – Carlos Ruiz Zafon, The Shadow of the Wind

 
“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.” – Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray 

  
“One must always be careful of books... and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us.” – Cassandra ClareClockwork Angel

“The best books... are those that tell you what you know already.” – George Orwell, 1984