I have seen many public art works, but I think one of the finest is not really an art work at all. Instead, construction workers in Boston are writing the names of children on steel beams. They get the names from the children at the cancer hospital nearby, who write their names on paper for the workers to see. The Boston Globe has the story here.
Project Gutenberg has been around for along time, relatively speaking. They still have lots of great books online, totally free (as in free of charge and you are free to do what you want with them), and continually being updated. The new ebook sites are all fine and good, but this classic site is full of ..um…classics! And much more. You deserve to pop in and take a browse.
You likely know the tips for getting over a cold: Drink Plenty of Fluids, Get Plenty of Rest, and Take Medicine. What I liked about this article, Tips for Getting Over a Cold at Associated Content, is that not only did they have these tips (and some other good ones), but they explained why it is good to do these things.
Bonus: I didn’t realize pineapple juice is good dealing with a cold. See the article and you’ll know why.
The world is becoming more urban. And with this migration to the cities, will come the growth of ‘slums’.
Why do I put ‘slums’ in quotations? Because I think we need to rethink the idea of a slum, just like we have rethought the notion of garbage.
Our perception of garbage has changed alot since when I was a kid. Back then, in the town I lived in, you could take your garbage to the ocean and toss it in! Now that would be seen as worse than a crime. These days, most of the material thrown out of my house gets diverted into recyclables or compost. Less and less is ‘trash’, and eventually I would like to get that down to zero.
Likewise for ‘slums’. To change the nature of ‘slums’ and the way we think about them, we need to better understand them and recycle the good from them. This article, the world’s slums are overcrowded, unhealthy – and increasingly seen as resourceful communities that can offer lessons to modern cities, in The Boston Globe shows just some of those benefits.
And some cities are taking different approaches to these places, too (though not all). For instance:
“In Kenya, about a million people live in Kibera, outside the city center of Nairobi. Its huts are built of mud and corrugated metal, trash is everywhere underfoot, and “flying toilets” – plastic bags used for defecation and then tossed – substitute for a sanitation system. In Istanbul, by contrast, where the city government has been more sympathetic, some squatter areas have water piped into every home.”
I don’t want to romanticize slums. I wouldn’t want to live in one, and I would bet that people living in them would likely prefer to live somewhere better. (I also wouldn’t have wanted to live in parts of London during the 19th century either.) But fixating on them as something that has to be disposed of is avoiding the problems they pose. Thinking about accentuating what is good about them and eliminating what is bad about them is a more constructive approach to dealing with something that will be with us long into the 21st century and beyond.
I recommend you read the article in the Boston Globe by to Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow. It is filled with lots of good ideas and examples.
(The wonderful photo above is from godwin d’s photostream at flickr.com. It is a series of photos taken of slums in India during Diwali. During Diwali, Hindu households hang a colourful lantern outside their door. I highly recommend you see the rest of the photostream.)
If you’ve been blogging for awhile, you have likely gotten the hang of it, but would like to move on and get even better at it. If you do, consider this article in Lifehacker: Top 10 Tools for Your Blog or Web Site. It’s a great source for people who may have been using sites like WordPress.com or blogger.com but who would now like to see what else they can do.
It’s a collection of tips: you still will want to consider learning more about how to set up your own domain name, installing WordPress yourself, etc., to take advantage of all the tips. But even a few of them will give you a leg up.
I follow dozens of people on Twitter, including some actors like Stephen Fry and LeVar Burton. Both men are very good users of Twitter. Indeed, LeVar Burton said he was going to Toronto this week to appear on the show The Hour on CBC, and he asked his followers for some information on it. That was the weekend.
On the way home on Monday I saw a “tweet” from him saying he was going to be at a downtown bar in Toronto for a “tweetup”. I thought: what the heck, I should head over and see if he shows up and if nothing else, see what happens.
This Globe article has a good run down on what happened next. And this YouTube video has some footage of the event.
As for me, I got to shake his hand, share a few words and get my photo taken (and naturally posted it on TwitPic! 🙂 )
It was delightful to not only meet LeVar Burton, who was very cool and very gracious with all the followers who showed up, but it was also a treat to meet all these people on Twitter whose messages I have read but never had a chance to meet before.
I am sick with a late winter cold today. Lying here, trying to get better, I thought of the benefits of minor hardship.
One benefit of such hardship is regaining an appreciation of things. Lying here, instead of rushing about like I normally do, I am appreciating how good it is to rest and relax and take it easy from time to time.
I am also drinking plenty of water. Every glass tastes good, and I associate drinking water (and resting) with getting better.
As a result of this minor hardship, I am gaining a new appreciation for water and resting, simple things that are easy to overlook with all the choices we have to drink and do.
The other benefit of minor hardships is that one recovers from the quite easily. We can gain insights awithout being burdened in the long term. This too is a good thing.
That said, I have posted this when I should be resting! I’ll send this off and fill up my water glass.
Over at Wired is a really good rundown on netbooks: what they are, how they came about, and why they are so popular. I was just at a conference and a number of people were showing their netbook off. I expect to see more and more around.
I think this comment at the end of the article is key:
“In the process of creating a laptop to satisfy the needs of poor people, she revealed something about traditional PC users. They didn’t want more out of a laptop—they wanted less.”
I heard this before, but I came across this on the very good Happenupon’s Weblog.
Based on searches people do for flu-like symptoms, Google can predict flus. Here’s a chart comparing Google’s data and that from the Centre for Disease Control (CDC):
Pretty cool. Now can they predict when this recession will be over? That would be good.
As seen as USAtoday.com, ‘one month after her surgery for pancreatic cancer, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said Thursday she expects to be on the Supreme Court for several more years. In an interview, she also vividly recalled why, on her second day back on the bench, she attended President Obama’s televised speech to a joint session of Congress.’
“First, I wanted people to see that the Supreme Court isn’t all male,” the lone female justice said of the evening event Feb. 24. “I also wanted them to see I was alive and well, contrary to that senator who said I’d be dead within nine months.”
Ginsburg was referring Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., comment, which he later apologized for, in which he said she would be dead from the pancreatic cancer she had within nine months. Bunning’s comment was awful. Good for Justice Ginsburg. See more here.
CARNET DE DESSINS/Bénédicte’s blog. Lots of lovely drawing, sketches and other works. Go treat your eyes.
Skittles is known for their unusual approach to advertising and media. I think they are quite inventive and noteworthy. However, as reported on Mashable.com, Skittles unusual approach with social media this week, while innovative and noteworthy, also, as a result of “Bad Jokes”, were forced to retreat from twitter to Facebook. (“Bad jokes” is Mashable’s term: as they say later, the comments were much worse than that.)
I thought this lesson had been generally learned from the previous bad experiences at Chevrolet and the Los Angeles Times, but apparently not. As Mashable says:
“It’s important to point out how nasty (insults, racial slurs) things can turn out when you give control of the content on your site to users, some of which can be completely anonymous.”
Anyone developing a social networking service like this needs to have a strategy for dealing with trolls and other antisocial behavoir on your site. Otherwise…well, you might end up with something similar happening.
Mashable.com has a good rundown of the story at the link above.
That’s the premise of this article in Fast Company, Made to Stick: Set Smaller Goals, Get Bigger Results.
In order to overcome problems and difficulties that you face, the article recommends setting strict, short time limits on taking action that can lead to improvement. Whether it is tackling a big cleaning job, doing expenses, or praising others, this article has recommendations on how to deal with it in short bursts.
To this I would add a few things:
(Photo of man getting a free five minute massage courtesy of Rasmussen College – Green Bay’s photostream on flickr. See, you can even be more relaxed in just five minutes! 🙂 )
There’s a good Op-Ed Contribution (The Great Solvent North) in the NYTimes.com by Theresa Tedesco, the chief business correspondent for The National Post (a Canadian newspaper) in which Canadian banks are being praised for their conservative and disciplined nature., among other things. They do deserve praise for this.
However, this man should also be praised. Praised for such things as keeping the Canadian banks in check when they were wanting to merge in the 1990s. I remember at the time that Canadian banks and their supporters were bemoaning that if they didn’t merge, they wouldn’t matter any more on the world banking stage. It was people like Martin who saw the risks there, and at one time, when the banks tried to do an end run around him, he slapped them down.
Now the banks are being heaped with praise. Yet if it weren’t for Martin, they might be in the same predicament that some of the other big banks they want to catch up to are now in. (Ironically, due to the decimation of the U.S. banking system, Canadian banks are now much bigger these days in comparison.) So, praise to the banks and the Canadian banking system, but praise also to the regulators and leaders like Martin who also played a big role.
There is a great Toronto Star article on Martin and what he accomplished here. It is well worth a read.
Lots of people come to this blog looking for BlackBerry tools. I feel bad, since this eclectic blog is anything but a source of software tools. But feeling bad is useless. Instead, I found this link on Mashable.com that IS useful. See this post: 15 Free Tools to Turn Your BlackBerry into a Communications Powerhouse for a source of useful BB tools. Let me know if you find any that are worthwhile and I will post that info here.
The venerable Mr. Buffet has taken a hit this year like everyone else, and according to this article, he Accepts Blame and Faults Others (NYTimes.com), as he is right to do. Warren Buffett has been a critic of financial derivatives for some time (and with good reason). Sadly, even his criticism was not enough to curtail the use of these weapons of mass financial destruction, as he used to classify them. Perhaps if he had come up with this metaphor sooner, that may have helped:
“Participants seeking to dodge troubles face the same problem as someone seeking to avoid venereal disease,” he wrote. “It’s not just whom you sleep with, but also whom they are sleeping with.”
English artist Stuart Semple released “2057 pink smiley faced clouds float from the Tate Modern over Londons Southbank towards the financial district.” Why? To make people happy.
Nice touch: they were made to disappear after 30 minutes (so they are pink and “green”).
YouTube – Stuart Semple, Happy Clouds, Tate Modern, Southbank, London
(Tip to AndrewSullivan.com)
“In the depths of winter I finally learned there was in me an invincible summer.” — Albert Camus
It is easy to dismiss Lily Allen: she is cute, she is poppy, and she sings about shallow things. Don’t be deceived: she is really smart. Too smart, almost. And she is getting better and better.
Throughout Toronto (and likely Canada and many other parts of the world), stores are promoting “green” bags over plastic. While it is better to use these green bags versus disposable plastic bags, I am not a big fan of the design of the green bags. What I am a fan of and what I would recommend is something like these Oxfam Shop’s Jute String Bags. Unlike alot of green bags, they collapse into nothing practically, making them easier to carry with you than green bags. They are made out of a natural material (unlike alot of green bags). They are highly expandable. And they are super strong. I think they are superior to green bags. Plus if you can get them from a fair trade organization like Oxfam shop, you are doing some additional good.
I’ve had mine for years, and I have loaded it up so heavily I could barely carry it, and it shows none the worse for all that.
Brilliant. Infectious. Animal Collective.
Thanks to Tuneage.tumblr.com for the pointer.
David Pogue has a thorough review of Amazon.com’s Kindle at the NYTimes.com. There’s been alot written about the Kindle, but I like Pogue’s review for how he points out all little details you may want to know before you buy it. He’s a good tech writer.
But what I want to highlight is something he addresses towards the end of the review, where he asks and answers the question:
“So, for the thousandth time: is this the end of the printed book?
Don’t be silly.
The Kindle has the usual list of e-book perks: dictionary, text search, bookmarks, clippings, MP3 music playback and six type sizes (baby boomers, arise). No trees die to furnish paper for Kindle books, either.
But as traditionalists always point out, an e-book reader is a delicate piece of electronics. It can be lost, dropped or fried in the tub. You’d have to buy an awful lot of $10 best sellers to recoup the purchase price. If Amazon goes under or abandons the Kindle, you lose your entire library. And you can’t pass on or sell an e-book after you’ve read it.
Another group of naysayers claims that the Kindle has missed its window. E-book programs are thriving on the far more portable (and far more popular) iPhones and iPod Touches. Surely smartphones, which already serve as cameras, calculators and Web browsers, will become the dominant e-book readers as well.
The point everyone is missing is that in Technoland, nothing ever replaces anything. E-book readers won’t replace books. The iPhone won’t replace e-book readers. Everything just splinters. They will all thrive, serving their respective audiences.”
I put in bold what I think is crucial. Actors still act on stage despite movies and television, musicians still perform concerts despite recordings, radio and YouTube videos, and readers will still read books regardless of the quality and quantity of e-books that come out. The publishing industry will be affected, of course, but that is a different matter. When it comes to the printed page, there will still be people who long and look for that, and there will still be books to meet that demand and desire.
Ryan Lizza has a good profile of Rahm Emanuel in the New Yorker (The Gatekeeper).
The whole article is good, but I liked this part:
“They have never worked the legislative process,” Emanuel said of critics like the Times columnist Paul Krugman, who argued that Obama’s concessions to Senate Republicans—in particular, the tax cuts, which will do little to stimulate the economy—produced a package that wasn’t large enough to respond to the magnitude of the recession. “How many bills has he passed?”
It reminds me of Stalin’s critique of the Pope during World War II. (It’s both a very bad and a very good metaphor. 🙂 )
Emanuel will move the troops up the field, but he will do it in his own way. He knows how.
(RED)WIRE, as the site says,
“…is a digital music magazine with one very important difference. It not only changes the way
music is discovered, it provides medicine for people who need it in Africa.”
(RED)Wire states that it will provide you with weekly delivery of great music delivered weekly for a cost of $5/month. The best part is that half of that goes to buy medicine for people living with HIV in Africa.
If you are already buying music online, consider buying some via (RED)WIRE – an online music magazine that saves lives.
One of my favourite mashups is this cross of Run DMC’s It’s Like That with some (sped up) Russian soldiers dancing. You have to see it.
Brilliant.
Sure, LOLcats is still funny, but Яolcats, with its quasi-C0mmunist sloganeering, is a new kinda funny. For example, this supposedly translates to:
“Aaaaah… Pig iron, your musk is that of glorious industry …”
There are lots more, but this made me truly laugh out loud.
It may be that Hillary Clinton mugs more for photos than other politicians. But in the last year or so, I have had the impression that the media has used more odd photos of her than of other politicians. Almost all the photos that I have seen of Obama and McCain have shown them in a good light, but many of the photos of Clinton that I have seen have been unflattering. Like this one. I wish I had a way to determine if this is true or not. As she become more active as Sec’y of State, I will have to keep an eye out for this.
(photo from globeandmail.com : In Pictures)
Yahoo! Briefcase is going away. Google Notebook is getting shutdown as well. I have been using both of them, albeit sparingly, for some time. (I have files on Briefcase going back to 2003). I am not critical of either Yahoo
or Google: they offer a wide variety of services, and from time to time, they are going to discontinue some of them.
What this means to me, though, is going forward, I am going to be trying to apply some rules of thumb in determining whether or not I use such services. One such rule is going to be: how easy is it to retrieve or backup the material that I have stored there? If it easy, I am going to be more likely to use it. My second rule is going to be: how much of my rights do I give up in using the service? If the service provider is taking an aggressive or an expansive approach to my content, then I am less likely to use it.
It’s like due to the New Zealand Internet blackout protest against a new law there concerning copyright. You can find out more at this site: nzblackout.org.
Yes, you know you want one. Or more likely, all of them. And they are selling like hotcakes, it seem (for example, this is the Inbox Zero badge). Go to Nerd Merit Badges for more info.
It’s hard to know what to say about the blog, This is why you’re fat. It’s truly scary food. In fact, this…
…may not be the worst thing on the blog. When it comes to looking at it, it is similar to a car crash: even if you don’t want to see it, you also do want to see it.
(Found via Stephen Fry on twitter)
A very interesting web site that asks people to stand up and say, not “I am Spartacus”, but “I am a file sharer”. Whether or not you agree with them, I think you will agree the approach is both new and ancient. Let’ see what happens.
Check out This is what a criminal looks like | filesharer.org
This is not only a very interesting use of crowdsourcing, but a smart way of encouraging it. How do they do that?
‘The “blind astrometry server” is a program which monitors the Astrometry group on Flickr, looking for new photos of the night sky. It then analyzes each photo, and from the unique star positions shown it figures out what part of the sky was photographed and what interesting planets, galaxies or nebulae are contained within. Not only does the photographer get a high-quality description of what’s in their photo, but the main Astrometry.net project gets a new image to add to its storehouse of knowledge.’
For more on this story, see the blog Code (a Flickr Developer Blog)
P.S. Credit to Tim O’Reilly (@timoreilly) on twitter for pointing this out. As he said: Amazingly cool use of Flickr API
Ok, you can’t download your own wine, but what if, like open source software, you want to gain a better understanding of what you are using/drinking and even participate in the production of it? Well you can. Ryan O’Connell, who I have blogged about before, has a smart posting on how Master Grape is applying open source ideas to wine making: Free Culture Movement – Open Source Wine? « Make Your Own Wine.
In some ways, it is not all that different from farming cooperatives we have in North American, whereby people pay a fee in exchange for a piece of farm land where they grow and harvest their own vegetables. Except instead of harvesting beans or carrots, you’ll end up harvesting grapes and making wine! And like people who grow their own, you’ll learn alot about the process, have fun, and end up with a better product (I believe) than if you just buy it at the store.
Check out the blog and the rest of the Master Grape site. I haven’t done this yet, but I aspire to some day.
Now this is depressing. Apparently Stock Decline Have Hit Depression Levels according to BusinessWeek.com. They say:
During the darkest 10 years of the Great Depression, from September 1929 to September 1939, the stock market dropped roughly 50%, adjusted for inflation. With today’s drop in the stock market, the U.S. has now matched that unfortunate milestone. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index, adjusted for inflation, is now down about 50% over the past 10 years from Feb. 17, 1999 to Feb. 17, 2009.
Plus, if you also have equity in your house, you likely have lost money there, too.
Remind me again why I am working and socking money away?
Possibly. Off his bang-on analysis of the recent U.S. elections, Nate Silver now Predicts the Winners of the 2009 Oscars in New York Magazine.
Like alot of people, I think Nate is not only a smart guy, but a top notch analyst. So whether or not he has jumped the shark will be determined after Oscar night. Time, indeed, will tell.
Lately, on the political blogs I read, the talk is thick with whether or not banks in the U.S. should be nationalized. Frankly, I thought it might not amount to much more than that: talk. However, according to, FT.com, now Alan Greenspan backs bank nationalisation.If Greenspan thinks it needs to be done, that changes the nature of the discussion and indicates to me that the likelihood of it happening is much higher.
We are in the midst of revolutionary times. That doesn’t mean revolutions will occur – witness 1848 – but big changes will occur now or in the years soon to come.
(Flickr photo of Karl Marx from benleto’s photostream)
Hey, if Jason from Friday the 13th can make a comeback, so can Karl.
To lead off this cover, the band starts off by saying why they’re doing this. It’s simple:
“We can just do it better than Britney.”
They are not kidding! Not only do they do a great job musically, but these guys are so smart in the way they interpret this song…well, just see for yourself. And just when the song starts to get repetitive towards the end, they take it somewhere different. Like I said: smart.
Over at the Moment Blog on NYTimes.com is Georgio Armani doing a stint at guest blogging. Like all famous people, it is difficult to know how much of it is his writing and how much of it is his staff. It does feel like a blog entry he might make. It has lots of small details that make for a fun read, including his mild rebukes of Americans for overdoing their pasta and dressing rather poorly in night clubs.
One pair of lines made me laugh. He says:
“I have an apartment on Central Park West, which makes me feel like a real New Yorker. It’s a penthouse with terraces all around.”
Yep, lots of New Yorkers have that! Still, he comes across well, and if you love fashion, it is worth checking out.
Smart People I Know 
