Author: smartpeopleiknow

It’s a sad and beautiful world, indeed

The next time you are in a (good) video store, try and rent “Down by Law”. It is smart and funny and very cool. It’s been ages since I have seen it, but it still has stayed with me all this time. It has great lines , great scenes and great music. Check out the trailer for a taste:

YouTube – Down By Law – Theatrical Trailer

FTP: not just for techies anymore.

The globeandmail.com has this article: U.S. Military documents found unprotected on FTP servers

I think it is a sign of the adoption of technology that the Globe could mention “FTP servers” in a headline: they must assume that people will know what that means.

Of course, there is a good article in there on the lack of security when it comes to such matters, but that is another story. 🙂

How to save a life…with Web 2.0

The New York Times has an article on J. N. Jayashree, who “did not want her husband to die the death of an Indian whistle-blower” and adopted a unique way of protecting him. How did she do it? By blogging.

“We’re creating a fortress around him — a fortress of people,” she said
in a telephone interview. “I wanted to inform the people that this is
happening, that my husband is a whistle-blower, so that it becomes the
responsibility of every citizen to protect him.”

For more, see the nytimes.com article: In India, Protecting a Whistle-Blower.


On the need for Post Mortem P.R. flacks

If this Telegraph obituary is any indication, in the future, rich people should put aside some money in their will to deal with scathing obits such as this one! I have a quote here, but you really have to read the whole obituary! I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that after the funeral, the author went and stole the flowers from the grave site!

Count Gottfried von Bismarck | Obituaries | News | Telegraph

Count Gottfried von Bismarck, who was found dead on Monday aged 44, was a louche German aristocrat with a multi-faceted history as a pleasure-seeking heroin addict, hell-raising alcoholic, flamboyant waster and a reckless and extravagant host of homosexual orgies.The great-great-grandson of Prince Otto, Germany’s Iron Chancellor and architect of the modern German state, the young von Bismarck showed early promise as a brilliant scholar, but led an exotic life of gilded aimlessness that attracted the attention of the gossip columns from the moment he arrived in Oxford in 1983 and hosted a dinner at which the severed heads of two pigs were placed at either end of the table.


Sex and the News

It is interesting that on Reuters web site, there is this article

Risque EU defends Internet orgasm clip

with a link to the YouTube video from the EU (it is not explicit, but it is NSFW).

The same article more or less on CNN.com:

Orgasm clip spices up EU meeting

has an image of the video but not a URL link to it.

I guess the software that CNN uses to make their web pages wasn’t working properly. 🙂

Here it is:

judge for yourself.

Be smart: eat chocolate

This study says eating dark chocolate lowers blood pressure. The participants in the German study ate just a small amount of Ritter chocolate. (Ritter is good and easily available in Toronto). The article goes on to say:

Every day for 18 weeks, the volunteers were instructed to eat
one-square portions of a 16-square Ritter Sport bar, or a similar
portion of white chocolate. White chocolate doesn’t contain cocoa.

Systolic blood pressure,
the top number, fell an average of nearly three points and diastolic
dropped almost two points in the dark chocolate group, compared with no
change in blood pressure readings in the white chocolate group.

Tests suggested that steady exposure to dark chocolate prompted
chemical changes that helped dilate blood vessels and regulate blood
pressure, the researchers said.

So there you go: take two blocks of chocolate every day, have a glass of red wine, and don’t forget the apples, and you should live to be 100!

For more details, see Chocolate reduces blood pressure – Yahoo! News

Anyways…that’s just the way we roll…and other infuriating thing-a-ma-bobs

Years ago, the Globe and Mail seem to take on a large number of columnists, likely to compete with The National Post. Over time, many of those columnists dropped off the paper. One who did not was Leah McLaren.

I have a love/hate relationship with her column. I read it every week, even when it is annoying. Perhaps it is her (professional?) self-obsession. Whatever.

Speaking of that, her latest column in globeandmail.com: At the end of the day, you are what you say. Totally
is one I found very funny. A nice, condensed summary of the banal cliches we use during the week and on the weekend.

Hmmm….banal….cliches….it makes sense now.

FlickVision is the new Life

There is a new interface to Flickrvision: flickrvision (beta)

It is a 3D map of the world that spins around and shows photos people are posting on Flickr. You really have to see it. I find it profound to see all these images, from the sublime to the goofy, being posted. I even saw one of a trail around my neighborhood.

It reminded me of Life magazine, except it continual, and the photographs come from everyone.

I also had a thought watching this, imagine flying around the world, dropping down from time to time, and watching what everyone is doing. It is an approximation of omniscience. 🙂

The Buddha Project

If you have this Buddha on your mantle or your bookshelf that you think is special, why not share it with the rest of the world? Just snap a photo of it and hop on over to the buddha project.

As they say:

Images of Buddha can remind us to take a breath, to look around, to
feel calm and compassionate, to be here now. You can notice Buddha almost
anywhere — laundromats, store windows, barbershops, farmers’ markets,
souvenir stands, tucked away on someone’s night table.

It makes me hope this is success for alot of reasons.

Such Great Heights or The Genius of the Postal Service

I have been impressed by this song and the video that goes with it (there is a yearning in the woman’s eyes, and a symbolic Victorian suppressed sexuality to it, I think): YouTube – the postal service – such great height

How great is the video? Well, Apple, who has known to make pretty good commercials, thought it was good enough to steal. The proof is here:

YouTube – Apple – Intel vs. Postal Service

While the video is great, the song is superb too. Here are too very different versions, showing the potential of the song:

Iron and Wine’s Version

Ben Fold’s Version

The hilariously brilliant Ken Robinson on Education

What I find remarkable about this talk by Ken Robinson is how it manages to be insightful and very funny. You can watch it just for the humour and have a good laugh. But like any TED talk, you will also gain alot by the ideas presented. Goto YouTube and see:

Do schools today kill creativity? (Ken Robinson, TEDTalks)

It’s also a Master class in how to present.

Bill Clinton was here

The washingtonpost.com has a cool map showing all the places in the world Bill Clinton has spoken. It’s impressive.
(Clinton’s Golden Voice | Bill Clinton’s Paid Speeches | washingtonpost.com)

If you read this article, Bill Clinton Made $10 Million From Speeches – washingtonpost.com you’ll see some impressive numbers, including:

For example, Clinton earned $750,000 from three speeches over three days in February in Australia and New Zealand and $1.74 million from six speeches over four days in September in England, Ireland, South Africa, Germany and Denmark. The latter total included $450,000 for a single speech in London on Sept. 26 at a gala dinner of the Fortune Forum, a nonprofit group that aids international charities.Clinton made 352 speeches last year, but only 57 of them were reported on today’s form as having generated personal income. The others were given for no fee or for donations to the William J. Clinton Foundation, a charity he founded to promote causes such as fighting HIV/AIDS and global warming.

Clinton has earned more than $40 million in speaking fees in the past six years, records show. After leaving office, he made more than $9 million a year in 2001 and 2002. His income from speeches dropped to $4.4 million in 2003, when he was writing his memoirs, and less than $1 million in 2004, when he had heart surgery, before picking up in 2005, when he pulled in $7.5 million.

352 speeches last year?! That’s almost one a day!

Get running!

The Zen habits blog is full of great advice. For those of you who might want to start running, or used to run but haven’t run in awhile, I strongly recommend you look at this: Beginner’s Guide to Running | zen habits

There’s lots of great tips there.

One site they didn’t mention is Hal Higdon‘s web site. It is PACKED with good advice. You can buy lots of magazines and books on running. Or you can save your money for better shoes and use these sites instead.