SMART CEO's BLOG

River deltas are difficult places for map makers. The river builds them up, the sea wears them down, their outlines are always changing. The changes in China's Pearl River Delta, however, are more dramatic than these natural fluctuations. An island six kilometers long and with a total area of 1248 hectares is being created there. And the civil engineers are as interested in performance as in speed and size. This is a bit of the delta that they want to endure.
The new island of Check Lap Kok, the site of Hong Kong's new airport, is 83% complete. The giant dumper trucks rumbling across it will have finished their job by the middle of this year and the airport itself will be built at a similarly breakneck pace.
As Check Lap Kok rises, however, another new Asian island is sinking back into the sea. This is a 520 hectare island built in Osaka Bay, Japan, that serves as the platform for the new Kansai Airport. Chek Lap Kok was built in a different way, and thus hopes to avoid the same sinking fate.
The usual way to reclaim land is to pile sand rock on to the seabed. Then the seabed oozes with mud, this is rather like placing a textbook on a wet sponge, the weight squeezes the water out, causing both water and sponge to settle lower. The settlement is rarely even: different parts sink at different rates. So buildings, pipes, roads and so on tend to buckle and crack. You can engineer around these problems, or you can engineer them out. Kansai took the first approach, Check Lap Kok is taking the second.

The differences are both political and geological. Kansai was supposed to be built just one kilometre offshore, where the seabed is quite solid. Fishermen protested, and the site was shifted a further five kilometres. That put it in deeper water (around 20 metres) and above a seabed that consisted of 20 metres of soft alluvial silt and mud deposits. Worse, below it was a not-very-firm glacial deposit hundreds of metres thick.

The Kansai builders recognized that settlement was inevitable. Sand was driven into the seabed to strengthen it before the landfill was piled on top, in an attempt to slow the process, but this has not been as effective as had been hoped. To cope with settlement, Kansai's giant terminal is supported on 900 pillars. Each of them can be individually jacked up, allowing wedges to be added underneath. That is meant to keep the building level. But it could be a tricky task.
Conditions are different at Check Lap Kok, There was some land there to begin with, the original little island of Check Lap Kok and a smaller outcrop called Lam Chau. Between them, these two outcrops of hard, weathered granite make up a quarter of the new island's surface area. Unfortunately, between the islands there was a layer of soft mud, 27 metres thick in places.
According to Frans Uiterwijk, a Dutchman who is the project's reclamanation director, it would have been possible to leave this mud below the reclaimed land, and to deal with the resulting settlement by the Kansai method. But the consortium that won the contract for the island opted for a more aggressive approach. It assembled the worlds largest fleet of dredgers, which sucked up 150m cubic meetres of clay and mud and dumped it in deeper waters. At the same time, sand was dredged from the waters and piled on top of the layer of stiff clay that the massive dredging had laid bare.
Nor was the sand the only thing used. The original granite island which had hills up to 120 metres high was drilled and blasted into boulders no bigger than two metres in diameter. This provided 70m cubic metres of granite to add to the island's foundations. Because the heap of boulders doesn't fill the space perfectly, this represents the equivalent of 105m cubic metres of landfill. Most of the rock will become the foundations for the airport's runways and its taxiways. The sand dredged from the waters will also be used to provide a two-metre capping layer over the granite platform. This makes it easier for utilities to dig trenches - granite is unyielding stuff. Most of the terminal buildings will be placed above the site of the existing land. Only a limited amount of pile-driving is needed to support building foundations above softer areas.
The completed island will be six to seven metres above sea level. In all, 350m cubic metres of material will have been moved. And much of it, like the overloads, has to be moved several times before reaching its final resting place. For example, there has to be a motorway capable of carrying 150-tonne dump-trucks, and there has to be a raised area for the 15,000 construction workers. These are temporary, they will be removed when the airport is finished.
Image XXX: Landing at Kansai International Airport

The airport, though, is here to stay. To protect it, the new coastline is being bolstered with a formidable twelve kilometres of sea defences. The brunt of a typhoon will be deflected by the neighbouring island of Lantau, the sea walls should guard against the rest. Gentler but more persistent bad weather - the downpours of the summer monsoon - is also being taken into account. A mat-like material called geotextile is being laid across the island to separate the rock and sand layers. That will stop sand particles from being washed into the rock voids, and so causing further settlement. This island is being built never to be sunk.

The control of fire was the first and perhaps greatest of humanity's steps towards a life-enhancing technology. 

To early man, fire was a divine gift randomly delivered in the form of lightning, forest fire or burning lava. Unable to make flame for themselves, the earliest peoples probably stored fire by keeping slow burning logs alight or by carrying charcoal in pots.
How and where man learnt how to produce flame at will is unknown. It was probably a secondary invention, accidentally made during tool-making operations with wood or stone. Studies of primitive societies suggest that the earliest method of making fire was through friction. European peasants would insert a wooden drill in a round hole and rotate is briskly between their palms. This process could be speed up by wrapping a cord around the drill and pulling on each end.
The Ancient Greeks used lenses or concave mirrors to concentrate the sun's rays and burning glasses were also used by Mexican Aztecs and the Chinese.
Percussion methods of fire-lighting date back to Paleolithic times, when some Stone Age tool-makers discovered that chipping flints produced sparks. The technique became more efficient after the discovery of iron, about 5000 years ago. In Arctic North America, the Eskimos produced a slow-burning spark by striking quartz against iron pyrites, a compound that contains sulphur. The Chinese lit their fires by striking porcelain with bamboo. In Europe, the combination of steel, flint and tinder remained the main method of fire-lighting until the mid 19th century.
Fire-lighting was revolutionized by the discovery of phosphorus, isolated in 1669 by a German alchemist trying to transmute silver into gold. Impressed by the element's combustibility, several 17th century chemists used it to manufacture fire-lighting devices, but the results were dangerously inflammable. With phosphorus costing the equivalent of several hundred pounds per ounce, the first matches were expensive.
The quest for a practical match really began after 1781 when a group of French chemists came up with the Phosphoric Candle or Ethereal Match, a sealed glass tube containing a twist of paper tipped with phosphorus. When the tube was broken, air rushed in, causing the phosphorus to self-combust. An even more hazardous device, popular in America, was the Instantaneous Light Box - a bottle filled with sulphuric acid into which splints treated with chemicals were dipped.
The first matches resembling those used today were made in 827 by John Walker, an English pharmacist who borrowed the formula from a military rocket-maker called Congreve. Costing a shilling a box, Congreves were splints coated with sulphur and tipped with potassium chlorate. To light them, the user drew them quickly through folded glass paper.
Walker never patented his invention, and three years later it was copied by a Samuel Jones, who marketed his product as Lucifers. About the same time, a French chemistry student called Charles Sauria produced the first "strike-anywhere" match by substrituting white phosphorus for the potassium chlorate in the Walker formula. However, since white phosphorus is a deadly poison, from 845 match-makers exposed to its fumes succumbed to necrosis, a disease that eats away jaw-bones. It wasn't until 1906 that the substance was eventually banned.
That was 62 years after a Swedish chemist called Pasch had discovered non-toxic red or amorphous phosphorus, a development exploited commercially by Pasch's compatroit J.E.Lundstrom in 1885. Lundstrom's safety matches were safe because the red phosphorus was non-toxic; it was painted on to the striking surface instead of the match tip, which contained potassium chlorate with a relatively high ignition temperature of 182 degrees centigrade.
America lagged behind Europe in match technology and safety standards. It was not until 1900 that the Diamond Match Company bought a French patent for safety matches-but the formula did not work properly in the different climatic conditions prevailing in America and it was another 11 years before scientists finally adapted the French patent for the US.
The Americans, however, can claim several "firsts" in match technology and marketing. In 1892 the Diamond Match Company pioneered book matches. The innovation did not catch on until after 1896, when a brewery had the novel idea of advertising its product in match books. Today book matches are the most widely used type in the US, with 90 percent handed out free by hotels, restaurants and others.
Other American innovations include an anti-afterflow solution to prevent the match from smouldering after it has been blown out, and the waterproof match, which lights after eight hours in water.

Жил бүр өөр өөрийн гэсэн онцлогтой, сайн сайхан дурсамжууд, азгүй тохиолдлууд, баяр баясал авчирсан зүйлстэй, нэг ёсондоо сайн муу ээлжилсэн байдаг. Үүний нэгэн адилаар 2014-2015 он ч надад сайн муу олон зүйлсийг бэлэглэжээ.

1. Ажилдаа дуртай эсвэл ажлын донтой гэж найз нөхдөөсөө шүүмж ч юмшиг, магтаал ч юмшиг үг авдаг боловч үүнийг засья гэж нэг ч удаа бодож байсангүй. 2014 онд нийтдээ 38 судалгааны ард гарчээ. Үүний 25 нь зөвхөн зах зээлийн судалгаа байв. Судалгаа гэж юу болох, ерөнхий үйл ажиллагаа нь хэрхэн явагддаг талаар ойлгох гэж сүүлийн 6 жил тасралтгүй зөвхөн судалгаагаар ажиллаж байна. Гэсэн ч бүрэн төгс судалгааны know-how-г ойлгох хаа ч байсан юм гэсэн бодол жил ирэх тусам улам гүнзгий сууж байх юм. Үнэндээ юм хийх тусам мэдэхгүйгээ улам мэдрэх нь миний хувьд нэг ёсондоо хамгийн таатай зүйлсийн нэг гэж боддог. Найз нөхдийн хүрээнд ч эсвэл бизнесийн хамтрагчдын хувьд консалтингийн бизнес хийнэ, судалгааны бизнес хийх орон зай байна гэж ярьдаг, түүнийгээ хийх гэж шууд зүтгэж байгааг харахад БОЛООГҮЙ Л БАЙНА ДАА гэж хэлмээр санагддаг. Монголд судалгааны бизнесийн эрэлт хэрэгцээ одоо л үүсэж эхэлж байна, томоохон бизнесүүд судалгааг ойлгож, өдөр тутмын ажилдаа хэрэглэж сурч байна. Жижиг дунд бизнесийн салбарынханы хувьд судалгааг ойлгож, бизнесийн үйл ажиллагаандаа хэрэглэж сураагүй л байгаа гэж би боддог. Найз нар минь судалгаа, консалтинг хийнэ гэж ярихын оронд СУРЧ, ОЙЛГОЖ, ТУРШЛАГА ОЛЖ АВЬЯ гэж ярих нь зөв шүү.

2. Креатив, Судалгааны агентлаг маань 2014 оны сүүлээр Монголын анхны олон улсын агентлаг болж, Азийн хамгийн ТОП-20 шинэ LAUNCH-н нэгээр шалгарсан. Энэ хамт олондоо байгууллагын дотоод мэдээллийн сан, төслийн удирдлагын програм хангамж, электрон номын сан гэх мэт дотоод самбар бүтээж үйл ажиллагаандаа нэвтрүүлж өгсөн маань нэг том амжилт маань байлаа. Миний хувьд 4-р сараас эхлэн өөрийн өөр нэг том зорилгын хүрээнд энэхүү ажлаа хүлээлгэж өгсөн боловч жилийн 2-р хагас хүртэл сар бүр бүтэн цалин урамшуулалтай, бүр амралтын мөнгө, улирал тутмын бонусаараа шагнуулсан. Өдийг хүртэл надад ирсэн шагнал урамшууллуудаас хамгийн сэтгэлд томоор үлдсэн, хамт олныхоо итгэлийг хүлээсэн бэлэг, шагнал байлаа.

3. Менежмент Консалтинг гэдэг миний хувьд оюутны ширээнээс салснаас хойш ажиллаж, хийж үзэхийг хүсдэг ганц зүйл маань байлаа. Энэхүү боломж энэ онд тохиосон. Монголын бизнесийн салбарынханы дунд аль хэдийнэ өөрийн гэсэн байр суурьтай, эдийн засаг, улс төр, бизнесийн орчинг маш сайн мэдэрсэн мэргэжлийн консалтант МАСАМИ ТАЗАКИ сан-тай хамтарч ажиллах боломж. Монголын томоохонд тооцогдох нэгэн компанид оны сүүлийн 5 сарын хугацаанд консалтинг хийж ажилласан нь эртний мөрөөдлөө биелүүлсэн сайхан тохиол байв. Энэ хүнээс их зүйл сурсан. Дахиад ч их зүйл сурмаар байгаа. Ирээдүйд дахин хамтарч ажиллах боломж гарна гэж найдаж байна, чи энэ байдлаараа хичээвэл сайн консалтант болох боломж байна шүү гэсэн үг хамгийн том урам авсан, итгэл өгсөн зүйл байлаа.

4. Менежмент Консалтинг, Менежмент Консалтинг. Энэ бол миний ирээдүйн бизнес. Хөрөнгө оруулалтын сангийн үйл ажиллагааг ойлгох, фанд менежер хэрхэн болох тухай, бизнес ярилцлага, бизнесийн соёлыг ойлгох тухай, бизнесийг хэрхэн эзний нүдээр харах, ажилчны нүдээр харах, хөндлөнгийн этгээдийн нүдээр харах - Энэ бүгд миний энэ жилийн нэг том амжилт. Муухайгаар хэлэхэд ӨЛӨН нүдтэй л байж сурах хэрэгтэй. Гадаад худалдаа, Борлуулалтын сүлжээ, Ачаа тээврийн терминаль, хөдөө аж ахуйн төслүүд гэх мэтчилэн хэд хэдэн онцлог төслүүд дээр гадаад, дотоодын олон түншүүдтэй хамтарч ажиллах боломж тохиосон.

5. Сангийн тэргүүн Батсайхан ах тэргүүтэй бидний хэсэг нөхөд ажлын цагаасаа хагаслан байж хийдэг НИЙГЭМД ШУДАРГА ЁСЫГ ТОГТООХ, ТҮГЭЭН ДЭЛГЭРҮҮЛЭХЭД ӨӨРСДИЙН ХУВЬ НЭМРИЙГ ОРУУЛАХ-д чиглэсэн шударга үйлсийн аян амжилттай болж, энэ жил бид ямар ч албан байгууллагаас дутахааргүй 31 оюутанд сургалтын төлбөр олгосон явдал юм. 31 оюутан, тэдний ар гэр ямар их баярлаж байгаа бол, тэднийг хичээл сургалтандаа анхаарахад ямар их ачааг нь авч хөнгөлж өгч байгаагаа төсөөлөхөд үнэхээр сайхан байдаг. Хэдийгээр эдийн засаг хүндрэлтэй, байгууллагуудын санхүү хүндэрсэн байдалтай байгаа боловч биднийг үргэлжлүүлэн дэмжсэн ХасБанк, Улаанбаатар Хотын Банк, Монголын Хөрөнгө Оруулалтын сан, Делойтте, Энержи Интернэшнл ХХК, Баянзүрх Консалтинг хуулийн фирм болон хувь хүмүүс, мөн бидэнтэй үргэлж хамтын ажиллагаатай байдаг Худалдаа Хөгжлийн банк, Хера Холдинг ХХК зэрэгт баярлаж, талархсанаа илэрхийлмээр байна. Тэтгэлэг гэдэг ямар үнэ цэнэтэй байдаг, ямар сайхан байдаг гэдгийг мэдэх хүний хувьд үнэхээр л өөрөө тэтгэлэг авч байгаа юмшиг оюутнуудынхаа өмнөөс баярласан...

Ирэх он ч төлөвлөсөн ажил ихтэй, өнөөдрийнхөөс илүү том зорилготой, надад ирэх бэлэг нь нүдэнд харагдсан сайхан жил болно гэдэгт итгэлтэй байна. 

When talking about working, some people always complain a lot about it. They regard working as affliction which means hardship, vapidity and low earnings. They may even dream that they can also live a happy life without working. But as well all know, that will not come true. Everyone needs to work for many different reasons. I believe the three most common reasons is to acquire knowledge, to seed fame and to enjoy life.

In the first place, we work to practice our skills and we have to learn aspects of knowledge to solve the problems and to overcome difficulties. So working makes us skillful and effortless. The experiences we learn from working are the most important wealth. They are the major sources of wisdom. If we don't work, how can we improve our intelligence and then how can we create wonderful lives?

In the second place, we work to realize our value by producing large amount of goods and serving the others. Farmer is not a farmer until he plant corps, teacher is not a teacher until she instruct classes. They all have their responsibility and they also receive our respect because of their contributions to the society. That is the meaning of life, which us courage and confidence to exert our powers to build happy home.

In addition, we work to keep us healthy. We can communicate with each other during work. Meanwhile, we are helped and encouraged all together. However, if we do not work, we will become torpid and fat. We have to work to relieve our pressure. When you do something you are very competent to, you will view it as a kind of entertainment. You even find joy from them.
In conclusion, I believe working is a tool by with we can make a key to the gate of knowledge, is is a road which leads to tomorrow, and it is a drug which can keep us fit.

|| adapted from "America's Beekeepers: Hives for Hire" by Alan Mairson, National Geographic

Of the 2000 commercial beekeepers in the United States about half migrate. This pays off in two ways Moving north in the summer and south in the winter lets bees work a longer blooming season, making more honey and money - for their keepers. Second, beekeepers can carry their hives to farmers who need bees to pollinate their crops. Every spring a migratory beekeepers in California may move up to 160 million bees to flowering fields in Minnesota and every winter his family may haul the hives back to California, where farmers will rent the bees to pollinate almond and cherry trees.

Migratory beekeeping is nothing new. The ancient Egyptians moved clay hives, probably on rafts, down the Nile to follow the bloom and nectar flow as it moved toward Cairo. In the 1880s North American beekeepers experimented with the same idea, moving bees on barges along the Mississippi and on waterways in Florida, but their lighter, wooden hives kept falling into the water. Other keepers tried the railroad and horse-drawn wagons, but that didn't prove practical. Not until the 1920s when cars and trucks became affordable and roads improved, did migratory beekeeping begin to catch on.

For the Californian beekeeper, the pollination season  begins in February. At this time, the beehives are in particular demand by farmers who have almond groves, they need two hives an acre. For the three-week long bloom, beekeepers can hire out their hives for #32 each. It's a bonanza for the bees too. Most people consider almond honey too bitter to eat so the bees get to keep it for themselves.

By early March it is time to move the bees. It can take up to seven nights to pack the 4000 or so hives that a beekeeper may own. These are not moved in the middle of the day because too many of the bees would end up homeless. But at night, the hives are stacked onto wooden pallets, back-to-back in sets of four, and lifted onto a truck. It is not necessary to wear gloves or a beekeeper's veil because the hives are not being opened and the bees should remain relatively quiet. Just in case some are still lively, bees can be pacified with a few puffs of smoke blown into each hive's narrow entrance.

In their new location, the beekeeper will pay the farmer to allow his bees to feed in such places as orange groves. The honey produced here is fragrant and sweet and can be sold by the beekeepers. To encourage the bees to produce as much honey as possible during this period, the beekeepers open the hives and stack extra boxes called supers on top. These temporary hive extensions contain frames of empty comb for the bees to fill with honey. In the brood chamber below, the bees will stash honey to eat later. To prevent the queen from crawling up to the top and laying eggs, a screen can be inserted between the brood chamber and the supers. Three weeks later the honey can be gathered.

Foul smelling chemicals are often used to irritate the bees and drive them down into the hive's bottom boxes, leaving the honey filled supers more or less bee free. These can then be pulled off the hive. They are heavy with honey and may weigh up to 90 pounds each. The supers are taken to a warehouse. In the extracting the frames are lilted out and lowered into an "uncapper" where rotating blades shave away the wax that covers each cell. The uncapped frames are put in carousel that sits on the bottom of a large stainless steel drum. The carousel is filled to capacity with 72 frames. A switch is flipped and the frames begin to whirl at 300 revolutions per minute, centrifugal force throws the honey out of the combs. Finally the honey is poured into barrels for shipment.

After this, approximately a quarter of the hives weakened by disease, mites, or an ageing or dead queen, will have to be replaced. To create a new colonies, a healthy double hive, teeming with bees, can be separated into two boxes. One half will hold the queen and a young, already mated queen can be put in the other half, to make hives from one. By the time the flowers bloom, the new queens will be laying eggs, filling each hive with young worker bees. The beekeeper's family will then migrate with them to their summer location.