How to prolong your car’s lifespan

Source: The Star

WANT to continue driving but can't seem to afford a new car any time soon? Here's one alternative - save money by keeping your old jalopy running until it falls apart!

Alright, perhaps not literally, but a car, even when past its prime, can still serve you for a few more years if it's well taken care of - and at the same time, save you money from buying a brand new vehicle.

Here are some tips to keep your clunker going for many more years.

Routine maintenance

A well-maintained vehicle will still give you good service even after the odometer indicates that your car has “boldly gone where no car has gone before.”

“There's still a lot of life yet in your car even after you've hit 100,000km on your odometer,” says Simon Lam of Used Autos Sdn Bhd, a Kuala Lumpur-based used-car dealer. “Regular, routine maintenance ensures that your car is always running at optimum level,” he says, adding that one should not try to prolong a vehicle's maintenance schedule just to save a bit of money. If you feel that something needs fixing, get it done immediately before it escalates and becomes a bigger problem - which would mean big money to fix!”

Doing your own routine maintenance can save you money but it’s not for everyone.

Keeping your old car going also means saving money on not having to make payments on a new vehicle, says Kuala Lumpur-based mechanical engineer Peter Lau.

“Car loan repayment bills are a big financial obligation and delaying the purchase of either a new or used vehicle can help save you thousands of ringgit if you practice good auto maintenance habits and keep your old car running for many years.

“Getting your engine oil, gearbox fluid and spark plugs changed as per the maintenance schedule will help prolong and even avoid expensive rebuilds or replacements. Change your belts on a regular basis and flush the radiator out. It's the tiny things that make the most difference,” he says.

Drive it less

One way to reduce the wear and tear on your aging vehicle is to drive it less often, says Jeremy Tan (not his real name), a 30-year old lawyer from Johor Bahru.

Tan, who owns a 1965 Volkswagen (VW) beetle, says he used to drive it everyday when he was in college and in the early years of his working career.

He has since purchased a new car (a Proton Saga) but still maintains his trusty VW and drives it mostly on weekends.

“I will never sell it because it has served me for so many years. When I used to drive it daily, I would take it for repairs or maintenance jobs every three months. Nowadays, I can go a full year without taking it to the workshop.”

Can he stomach the maintenance bills for two cars?

“Road tax and insurance for my VW comes to about RM400 a year. It's a lot cheaper than paying for a new car. (The road tax and insurance) for my girlfriend's three-year old Perodua Kancil is nearly double that amount!”

Tan also says many older, foreign cars appear to be longer lasting than cars of today.

“I've been driving the car for over 20 years and have overhauled the engine once. So far, I've had no gearbox or suspension problems yet. Many new cars after a few years will start having all sorts of problems.

“So having an old car on the side does not burn a hole in my pocket.”

Learn to DIY

This option is for those who are a bit more adventurous and don't mind getting their hands dirty.

Tan says that having owned his VW for many years, he's taken the initiative to learn more about his car, and has even learnt a thing or two about maintaining it himself.

“In the beginning, I knew nothing about my car or how it worked. Words like distributor and carburettor were all foreign to me. For every little thing, I'd take my car to the workshop to get it fixed because I didn't quite know what really needed repairing, I'd get a bill for something that didn't need changing!”

Tan says by learning more about your vehicle and doing small maintenance and repair jobs on your car can actually save one lots of money and long trips to the workshop. “There is a wealth of information about how to fix your old cars. This can be sourced from the Internet, books or even DVDs.”

Tan says today he is able to do simple jobs on his own, such as changing the vehicle's engine and gearbox oil, adjust the brakes, timing and adjust the valves, among others.

“I've even got my car to start again when it broke down on the road. It saved me the hassle of waiting for a tow truck and money getting it fixed at a workshop.

“It's not for everyone, but getting to know more about how your car works and learning to fix certain things yourself not only saves you money, but it also changes your relationship with your vehicle.”

A website to connect everyone suffering from cancer

This was published in the local newspaper - The Star

SAN FRANCISCO: In the late 1990s, Marty Tenenbaum was a hotshot e-commerce entrepreneur riding high on the dot-com boom when he noticed a lump on his body.

His doctor told him it was nothing, but when he finally had it removed, he learned he had melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer.

He beat the disease, but he never got over the sense of frustration he felt as he clawed his way through the maze of treatment options, clinical trials and research in search of a way to survive.

Now 67, Tenenbaum still believes he would not have made it if he hadn't had personal connections at the National Cancer Institute who guided him toward cutting-edge experimental treatments that saved his life.

The experience convinced him that the key to advancing cancer treatment and research is forging connections on as large a scale as possible. On Tuesday, he plans to launch a Web application to bring together patients, physicians and scientists regardless of where they work, live or went to college in hopes that the so-called wisdom of the crowd can lead to the best therapies.

"I'm just trying to pull together all the pieces that are needed to do a real, rational attack on cancer," Tenenbaum says. The way to do that, he says, is to pull people out of their individual labs, offices and hospitals to collaborate in a way not possible before the Web and mobile technologies made it easy to pool vast amounts of information.

"How much of cancer could be turned into a manageable disease if we only knew what we knew?"

Tenenbaum is one of a growing number of supporters of the so-called open science movement, which calls for greater sharing of research and the lowering of institutional, financial, legal and geographical barriers to bringing the best minds and data together to solve science's toughest problems.

In its fledgling form, the Cancer Commons app integrates the existing data on different forms of melanoma and the most promising experimental treatments. Patients or their doctors input how far the disease has progressed, where it started and whether tests have discovered any specific genetic mutations believed to contribute to the cancer's spread.

From that information, the app tells patients what specific cancer "subtype" they have as determined by an expert panel. They also learn what drugs have shown the most promise in treating that specific form of the disease and where clinical trials are being conducted that could allow patients access to that treatment.

The app itself was built by CollabRx, Tenenbaum's for-profit health care startup. It's free for doctors and patients. The company would make money through pharmaceutical company sponsorships of different apps, though Cancer Commons does not endorse specific drugs.

The data itself generated by the Cancer Commons project will be free and available for anyone to use, Tenenbaum says.

At Harvard University's Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. Keith Flaherty studies melanoma treatments and sees patients with the most advanced forms of the disease. He volunteered to help lead the Cancer Commons melanoma project, which he says lets doctors and patients plug into a complex collection of data distilled into a simple set of treatment options.

Though Flaherty treats only melanoma, oncologists across the country are called on to treat all kinds of cancers. They don't have time to troll through obscure journals or websites to become experts on every variation of the disease, Flaherty says. An app like Cancer Commons lets those physicians plug into the knowledge of researchers like himself directly, he says.

"It's to empower that doctor with the same information we have access to." The hope is that patients also will be better able to advocate for themselves.

As the service expands, Tenenbaum also plans to make it possible for physicians and patients to add their own data on what has worked and what hasn't. While researchers cannot rely on one person's experience alone as a measure of success or failure, Flaherty says researchers could sift a large enough collection of anecdotes for leads.

The ease of sharing information among scientists and between nonscientists and professional researchers are two key developments made possible by the Internet that open science advocates say could speed discoveries.

"We have a chance at a new kind of digitally enabled collaboration," says Joseph Jackson, organizer of the Open Science Summit at the University of California, Berkeley last summer. "But the hardest thing to do is change human behaviors and practices."

Jackson is also working to help open a community biotech lab in Silicon Valley intended to provide space for ideas and research to take place outside traditional academic and corporate venues.

The San Francisco-based Science Commons project helps research institutions and scientific journals find ways to make valuable scientific data more widely available.

The group sees bright spots in their effort, such as the National Institutes of Health's mandate that all NIH-funded research be made available free to the public within a year of being published.

But big challenges remain, both technological and in the culture of how science is done, says Alan Ruttenberg, principal scientist at Science Commons.

Ruttenberg focuses on solving the problem of "data integration": how to put different scientific databases together to enable researchers to find new connections. Part of that effort involves developing a common language for data that Ruttenberg hopes someday will make possible a search engine for science.

"We ought to be able to ask a scientific question about anything that's been done and get a straight answer to that," he says. - AP

Online:

Cancer Commons: http://www.cancercommons.org/

Open Science Summit: http://opensciencesummit.com/

Science Commons: http://www.sciencecommons.org/

Eliminating corporate speak

Here is something I came across that you may find useful to read…especially point 3 – 

Corporate speak” is the gobbledygook that slows down progress and understanding in companies across the world. This problem is not just limited to large corporations; it also runs rampant among small businesses, entrepreneurs and lawyers. It is often a symptom of your environment. Could you imagine telling a loved one about the synergies of red wine complementing the innovative marinade on your steak dinner, not to mention having the bandwidth to sit down and commiserate with your counterpart? If you did…you’d often be eating alone.

So let’s make a resolution to ban corporate speak in 2011. But how? Here are three questions to ask yourself when successfully merging action-oriented planning steps to directives…I mean…when you actually write something:

1.   Who is my audience? Yes, your audience may use corporate speak. However, your message may be more effective by avoiding corporate speak in such an environment. Go through your writing and identify any words that your loved ones won’t understand. This doesn’t work in technical documents, but it will in 99% of everything else. If you can use plain, short language in a land of corporate speak you’ll be amazed at the response.

2.   Why am I using that word or sentence? Many people use corporate speak because it makes them sound smarter. Most people assume “sounding professional” is the same as “sounding smart.” It’s not. Let your intelligence shine through your ideas. People often use complicated sounding words simply to sound intelligent. Don’t be that guy (or girl)!

3.   Less is more. People seem to think that the longer something is, the more intelligent or important it is. This is especially important in email. Many people glance over long emails. Can your entire point be summed up in three regular sentences? I bet it can. Try it and watch how soon you’ll be able to sum up everything in one single sentence.

By eliminating corporate speak in 2011, your natural intelligence and creativity will shine!  I also think you’ll be amazed at the response. Smart people who can communicate clearly, succinctly and quickly will succeed!