What causes workplace stress? Is it email? Or is it something else.

I got into a discussion on twitter — yes, you can have discussion on twitter!:) – with my IBM colleagues @eric_andersen @lbenitez and @elsua,
and I said “I think overwork is the main problem, not email. email acerbates the problem of overwork.” It was a result of this article, Email storm creates workplace stress – IBM, email – CIO.

Generally I agree with the article: “unanswered emails” contribute to workplace stress, email is the most commonly used collaborative tool but
is often used in the wrong way, and that new tools can make things less stressful and more productive. That is half the story, and I actually learned this over two decades ago, when I worked in an area of IBM that allocated more IT resources to thousand of VM users on our mainframes. If a user wanted more memory, or hard disk space, or system privileges, they would fire off an email to an administrator, who would read it and try to figure out what the request was and try to respond to it, something like this:

The emails were free form and  often unclear. And there were alot of them. It was hard work for the admins, and frustrating for the users.

That was Phase I. For Phase II, what we did was give the users an online form to request resources. The admin still got email requests, but now they were standardized and clear. As a result, the admins could process them more quickly, and became more productive. The process also became less frustrating for the users. Most requests were standard, but we allowed special requests go directly to the admins if necessary.

Finally we went to this:

Now we put a layer of software between the users and the admins. Because the requests were standard emails, we could process over 80% of them with software without the admin ever having to see them. This meant that we could process many more requests than before.

Overall, it was not so much that EMAIL was the problem, but the way people used email. Because we could standardize it this way, we were able to automate the processing of it and subsequently process ALOT more email and yet reduce the overall stress to the admins.

Now if that happened twenty years ago, why are we still having these problems? I think it is because eMail is the tool that people know. Instead of using the best tool, they use the default tool, which is email and which is often the worst tool. To compound the problem, people don’t even communicate effectively in email. I don’t know how many times I have seen this happen:

Where A sends an email to X, Y and Z to process with plan #1 by Friday. However, Z, who knows B, forwards the email to B, asking for some clarification. B then forwards the email to C, who says that plan #1 can’t work, so they should proceed with plan#2 instead. Now B for some reason tells X and Z that they should do plan #2, not plan #1. From here things either freeze up, a flurry of emails are generated, or a meeting is called to resolve the miscommunication.

So email is half the problem. The other half, the more important half, is that when people are busy or too busy, this happens more. I see this often because I do project work and I see email ebb and flow at the end and at the peak of projects. In the peak of projects, when work is at its highest level, there is more of a chance of these knots to occur, as well as lots of emails not to be processed in a timely manner because it is not clear what I am supposed to do with it.  (e.g.is it an FYI, is it a request for me to do work, is it a request for someone to do work?). Very busy people often produce and receive more email and often send out email with unclear purposes. I think the work drives the problem, and email itself enables this to occur. But if the workload is low, it is easier to reduce the problem.

I am a big proponent of social media tools. I think they are better in many ways than email as a form of communication. However, if your staff are overloaded, better tools, while enabling them to be more productive, will break down at a certain point. Any resource, human or otherwise, will do so. The challenge is to drive automation to support and enable your employees to be peak performers. Workload balance is one way to do that. Better tools (i.e moving away from email) is the other.

 

I was rereading this last night, for it is one of my favourite books. It got me thinking again about fast food.

Sadly, fast food has been burdened with a bad reputation. Most of us  equate fast food with bad food. If you do, first up, I highly recommend you read: In praise of fast food. It’s a great review of fast food, why we tend to think of it as bad, and how, if we really think about it, it can be close to perfect food. Some of the most memorable meals I have had have been at fast food places like Trzesniewski’s in Vienna, or locally, the Chip Wagon in my home town of Glace Bay, with it famous french fries peeled and cooked in the same truck.  Crepes in Budapest, ham and cheese sandwiches in Paris, tapas in Madrid, pretzels in NYC: these are all great examples of delicious fast foods that I have had. I am sure you can think of lots of places yourself.

It’s not the food or the way it is prepared that is the problem, I believe: it is the intersection of politics and commerce. Not that politics and commerce are necessarily evil either, but they seem to make it difficult to have food that is fast and good.

So whenever you find a place that serves food good and fast, patronize it and tell others about it. Likewise whenever you prepare your own dishes that are quick and tasty. And if you ever get a chance, read this book. It’s subtitle is: Adapting to the Rhythm of Modern Life. Like me, de Pomiane believed you could eat well and eat quickly, and he set out to prove it. We need more people like him, and more-better fast food.

You can see it all in this memo: WorldWideWeb: Proposal for a HyperText Project. Hard to believe it’s been only 20 years!

There’s been alot of talk about the Twinkie diet that helped a nutrition professor lose 27 pounds (as reported at CNN and elsewhere).

First off, it shows once again that if you eat less calories than your body needs, you will lose weight. Mark Haub, the professor who did this, dropped around 800 calories from his typical diet. If you look at this article by David Katz, M.D.:on What Really Happens, you can see that adds up. So, from a weight loss perspective, it was healthy.

As David Katz shows, it is healthy from a cholesterol point of view as well. Haub’s cholesterol improved dramatically over this time. Another sign that this is a healthy diet.

Nutritionally, Haub covered the bases. For example, look at his typical day (provided by CNN):

Espresso, Double: 6 calories; 0 grams of fat
Hostess Twinkies Golden Sponge Cake: 150 calories; 5 grams of fat
Centrum Advanced Formula From A To Zinc: 0 calories; 0 grams of fat
Little Debbie Star Crunch: 150 calories; 6 grams of fat
Hostess Twinkies Golden Sponge Cake: 150 calories; 5 grams of fat
Diet Mountain Dew: 0 calories; 0 grams of fat
Doritos Cool Ranch: 75 calories; 4 grams of fat
Kellogg’s Corn Pops: 220 calories; 0 grams of fat
whole milk: 150 calories; 8 grams of fat
baby carrots: 18 calories; 0 grams of fat
Duncan Hines Family Style Brownie Chewy Fudge: 270 calories; 14 grams of fat
Little Debbie Zebra Cake: 160 calories; 8 grams of fat
Muscle Milk Protein Shake: 240 calories; 9 grams of fat
Totals: 1,589 calories and 59 grams of fat 

Now here’s the list without the cakes or the calorie free caffeine drinks in it:

Centrum Advanced Formula From A To Zinc: 0 calories; 0 grams of fat
Doritos Cool Ranch: 75 calories; 4 grams of fat
Kellogg’s Corn Pops: 220 calories; 0 grams of fat
whole milk: 150 calories; 8 grams of fat
baby carrots: 18 calories; 0 grams of fat
Muscle Milk Protein Shake: 240 calories; 9 grams of fat 

The protein shake and milk provide protein, while the carrots and the vitamin and milk provide most of the minerals and vitamins. The carrots and cereal provide some fibre, as likely do the cool ranch chips. And there is no lack of carbohydrates in this diet.

To summarize: the diet allowed him to lose weight (healthy), improve his cholesterol (healthy) and have enough nutrients and calories to get through the day (also healthy).  What’s the problem?

Well, to me, there are a number of problems. Without the vitamin and the protein shake, the diet falls apart (not surprisingly). The cakes provide energy and a feeling of being full and likely not much else. I think it would be better for someone to eat more fruits and vegetables and whole grains to get the same calories and likely better nutrients. And I would argue that apples and bananas and some other fruits and relatively cheap as is a loaf of whole wheat or multigrain bread. More importantly, getting into a habit of eating those foods is better than getting into the habit of eating cakes daily. Eating cakes daily is not a healthy way of eating (it should go without saying).

That said, I think this experiment is valuable, because I think nutrition tends to get dogmatic, and I think like any good science, it should not be. I have not seen anything to sway me from the belief that the best diet is one high in fruits and vegetables and low in fats and simple carbs.  But I think we should keep an open mind and realize there is alot to learn.

Time for a cookie. And some fruit.

(Image of Twinkies from Wikipedia)

Mark Bittman has a great version of a superb pairing of lentils and salmon. How he prepares it is top notch, of course, and uses the best ingredients. But even if you used canned lentils and frozen salmon, you would still have a good – and fast – meal. I like to make a lemon vinegrette (1 part lemon to 2 parts olive oil) and toss a bit of it in the lentils until they have just a bit of lemony tang. I find that goes well together with the richer salmon. And I like to have either a peppery rose or a lighter red (pinot noir, Beaujolais) to go with it.

And doesn’t it look fantastic?

Awesome.png (PNG Image, 400×400 pixels)

Once interest rates are effectively zero, the central bank of a country is in a bind as to what it can do to improve the economy. One thing it can do is called Quantitative Easing, whereby they do something like what is described here: The Fed’s $600 Billion Statement, Translated Into Plain English on Planet Money for NPR. What I like about this article is the explaination of FED-speak into something everyone can understand.

I also like how it slams the head of the Kansas City Fed, too. 🙂 Frankly the guy is an inflation hawk and he should be fired. But hey, I don’t run the Fed.

Beautiful.

YouTube – Azure Ray – Don’t Leave My Mind

Very.

From one of my favourite tumble logs, purple DIARY. (Very NSFW…best round midnight).

Sultry….

Coming from someone who is strong believer in greater public participation, that is an odd statement to make. But when I look at this graph found on the blog post, Yglesias » The Madness of Partisan Municipal Elections, and see this:

I see a problem. Seat changes in lower house match up very closely with what is happening in the upper house. It’s as if it doesn’t matter what the lower houses are doing: the voting public seems to lump it all together. That’s terrible, since you can have good governance from the majority government in a lower house that deserves relection, regardless of what is happening at a national level. But it seems not to matter. Yet it should.

Certainly in Canada I don’t think the provincial governments align with the national governments. In many cases, it’s just the opposite. As it should be. But the U.S. seems an odd and depressing counterexample.

It’s easy, if you know how. And thanks to the blog, Stay N’ Alive, I know (and now you do too):

Currently the only way to find an RSS feed is to log out and visit the profile of the user when you’re not logged into Twitter. This might also be why Google Reader still recognizes feeds when you enter user profile URLs in the “Add Subscription” box. Firefox doesn’t recognize the feed when I’m logged in – it does when I’m not. It does make you wonder how long the RSS feed will be in the unauthenticated version.

(I added the bold and the italics. )

There’s no way to guess it, since the feed has a numeric id in it that doesn’t relate back to the person’s twitter handle.

I hope they keep the RSS feed: I like processing that feed in other blogs, etc.

When it comes to thinking of IT and Africa, writers tend to lose their perspective and fall into one of at least two modes that drive me crazy. The first one is something like this, found in this article on Google in Africa, Googling Africa – By Dayo Olopade | Foreign Policy, where the author says:

Take Gmail, for example. Globally, the service has trailed those provided by Yahoo! and Microsoft. Magdalinski suspects it’s just too complicated for African modems. “Gmail is always loading with flashy chat and all this JavaScript,” he says.* By contrast, “Yahoo! loads fast — it works on a s— modem in an Internet cafe.” (As in the United States, users can opt to load a stripped-down in-box, but new applications like Google Chat to SMS — rolled out in Senegal, Ghana, and Kenya this year — require using the clunkier version.)

Note, it is not suspected to be the fault of Google, it is the African modems. In fact it is the case that Google (and lots of other service providers) develop Internet services with the assumption of high bandwidth. That makes sense when you are targeting first world urban markets. First world urban markets, and all urban markets to some degree,  have affluent populations in relatively small geographic centers, so of course they can handle web applications that are bandwidth intensive. It has nothing to do with African modems (or Indian modems or modems generally). It has to do with the adoption rate of technologies in various parts of the world.

Indeed, as this article shows, Bell wins nod to use wireless option in rural Web rollout – The Globe and Mail, rural Canada is also having challenges getting access to the same technology as their urban cousins. No one implies Gmail is too complicated for rural Canadian modems. That’s ridiculous, just like it is ridiculous when you talk about African modems. It’s a question of cost and innovation and implementation, not sophistication. The reason so many people in the world already have access to IT is because people continue to innovate in IT, continue to drive down costs, and continue to implement more and more IT so that more and more people have access to it. This will continue to happen in Africa and rural Canada and many other places. Focusing on “the place” may be easier than trying to understand and explain the limits of the technology, which is likely why this wrong mode of thinking crops up.

To see what I mean, consider Nokia. Unlike Google, Nokia is taking a different approach and trying to capture very big markets by driving down costs and deploying usable IT solutions to these markets. As this article,  Nokia Sees Cellphone Growth Among the World’s Poorest – NYTimes.com, shows:

On Saturday at dawn, hundreds of farmers near Jhansi, an agricultural center in central India, received a succinct but potent text message on their cellphones: the current average wholesale price for 100 kilograms of tomatoes was 600 rupees ($13.26).

In a country where just 7 percent of the population has access to the Internet, such real-time market data is so valuable that the farmers are willing to pay $1.35 a month for the information.

What is unusual about the service is the company selling it: Nokia, the Finnish cellphone maker, which unlike its rivals — Samsung, LG, Apple, Research In Motion and Sony Ericsson — is focusing on some of the world’s poorest consumers.

Nokia is focused on innovating and driving down the cost of deploying these IT solutions to these markets. And these solutions work in Africa and India and any place where you have potential customers with similar needs. It is a matter of matching up people with the right technology that fills their current needs.

While this is good for Nokia, the framing of this article is the second mode on writing about IT and Africa that drives me crazy, namely the moralizing that is attended to it. The line of thinking here is basically companies should roll out IT to Africa based on doing good, which to me is condescending. There is nothing wrong with companies doing good, of course, but companies should be providing IT to Africa and other parts of the world because it is good business, both for them and for their new clients. IT, education, microloans: these are just some of the things that enable people to achieve the ability to make a better living for themselves. In some ways, it allows for the development of small business, for the development of capital — or as G.B. Shaw defined it: “spare money” —  that they can use to invest and grow and develop their potential. And that means they can purchase more and achieve more and companies like Nokia and others can sell them more goods and services, to everyone’s mutual benefit. THAT is why companies like Nokia should be selling low cost IT to India and Africa and other places, not because Africans are “poor” and we in the West should be “good”.

In the West we forget that not very long ago in the 20th century, many parts of North America and Europe did not have access to electricity. Electrification was undertaken, not just because it would provide more and more people with electricity to light their homes and power their  radios and appliances, but because it meant greater mass production could be undertaken. Greater mass production meant that more goods could be produced, it meant that jobs could be created so that people could purchase those goods, and it meant that they could have light at night so they could study and better educate themselves and improve their future and the future of their children. Electrification provided many goods, but it wasn’t just something provided to be “nice” or “upstanding”. It was something that mutually benefitted many, and continues to do so.

The same has been happening with datafication, too. Like electricity, it first was deployed to urban centers before spreading out to other parts of the world. And like electricity, sometimes it will be used for the benefit of work. Sometimes it will be used for education or leisure. In any case, providing it and using it will be to the mutual benefit of all. It will be beneficial for the users of IT and the data it provides and it will be beneficial to IT companies that provide the goods and services. The sooner that happens, the better, for everyone.

Finally, two things. One, I mentioned Africa, because I see a more simplistic way of thinking when Western writers write about it more so than when they write about India or parts of Asia or the Americas. The problem is the way of thinking, be it concerning Africa or any part of the world that is developing.  Two, this these are my own thoughts and opinions, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.

Thanks for reading this.

I am impressed with Square’s job postings. Rather than the typical job postings asking for Superman/Wonder Woman, they have postings that are witty, specific, and flexible (e.g., one of them said that a university degree is not mandatory).

I also like this one that poses a test at the bottom of it. Now before you say, “I could just cheat on this”, you should expect to get another test in the interview.

Smart.

One of the comments made about President Obama during the 2008 campaign was that he ordered food at local restaurants, but instead of eating it there, he always had it to “to go”. The implication was that he didn’t actually eat it.

Case in point, this story: Obama stops at Hyde Park cafeteria – Chicago Breaking News. At this stop, the politicians ordered a number of things, including scrambled eggs to go. There are some foods that are perfectly fine to go, but scrambled eggs aren’t one of them. Indeed, breakfast as a whole is tough to take out: it gets cold fast and is hard to reheat.

Watch the next time Obama orders food from a local place: chances are it will be to go. That’s why he stays slim. 🙂

Donuts (doughnuts) get a bad rap. Yes, eating them all of the time is a bad thing, but that can be said for any pastry. From time to time, however, a good doughnut with your favourite beverage can be a great thing. Now that we’ve agreed on that :), you need to know where to go to get the best one this city has to offer. For that information, you need to go here: The Best Donuts in Toronto from BlogTo.

Just check out out those beauties (photo courtesy of BlogTo).

This is brilliant:

For 7 other great posters like this, go to Steve Thomas’s site and check out these Vintage Star Wars travel posters

(via The Daily What)

If I am judged good and I get to go to heaven, when I get there, Billy Strayhorn will be playing “Take the A Train” with the Duke Ellington Orchestra.

Meanwhile, we have this:

Heaven on Earth.

This has gotten lots of coverage elsewhere, but it is still remarkable. And great music for a late night weekend night.

But still good

Great parody here:

via The Daily What

So this has been getting alot of buzz in the news, but I don’t see much in the way of background, so I thought I would add some:

I stopped reading GQ decades ago, but fashion shots of men well dressed accompanied by women barely dressed is something they’ve been doing since the 80s.  You may not agree with it — I think it feeds into the “Axe” dream that young men have — but it is not something new. And young men are the audience of GQ magazine. Indeed, with the advent of “lad” magazines like Maxim and the like, there are more of these photos, not less.

Terry Richardson, the photographer, has been shooting photos like this for along time. I think he is a great photographer technically, and he is at his best when his subjects manage to combine glamour and trash (e.g., Lindsay Lohan). These photographs don’t work for me because I think of the Glee actors as neither glamourous nor trashy. And they echo the American Apparel ads, and that is tired in so many ways. I found the shoot disappointing. (You might say: there are women standing around in their underwear?! But I see women standing around that way in the La Senza shop next to the grocery store in the mall every day. I understand the general problem: I just don’t think GQ is exceptional.)

For the Glee cast, as actors, especially TV actors, I think this could be a good career move for them, because it allows them to potentially break out of the typecasting box that TV actors get put into. Hollywood actors making moves like this is nothing new, either.

All that said, I can see why people would be upset, both because of the imagery of the photographs and the messing around with the associations that people have of these actors. But there is nothing new or exceptional here, unless you’ve been living under a rock. Maybe if I was a big Glee fan, which I am decidedly not, I would feel different.

If you want to be outraged and / or see more of the photos, you can see alot of them at the Mail Online (which is comprehensively trashy), or you can make Conde Nast happy and buy a copy of GQ.

If you don’t believe that, Sean Stephenson should be able to convince you otherwise. Great video. Great spirit. Watch. Better still, dance. 🙂

(Found via The Daily What)

Politicians don’t operate in vacuums. Certainly good ones don’t. They operate in a world of cause and effect. The things they do and more importantly say are based to a large part of things that have happened before. And it is true that sometimes politicians make sweeping statements for a variety of reasons. But my first inclination whenever I hear a politician state something is to ask: what recent event could have driven that?

So when I read things like this: Angela Merkel declares death of German multiculturalism in The Guardian, I headed over to Der Speigel and did a search on recent events concerning Der Spiegel.  And what I see is this: Could State Election Spell End for Merkel? – SPIEGEL ONLINE.

As it turns out:

Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats are facing abysmal poll numbers and could even lose control of one of their strongholds in a key state election next March. One conservative newspaper is speculating that, if that happens, Merkel could soon be on the way out.

And given that she made her speech in front of young, German conservatives, my first inclination here is that Merkel is making sweeping statements to shore up her vote and a) help win this key state election and b) stay in power herself.

Read the article in Der Spiegel, where the fire is. Ignore the smoke of failed multiculturalism.

This is Angelo R Mozilo. If you were to read this article, Public Bravado, Private Doubts at Countrywide – NYTimes.com, you might get the impression that he was a fair to good CEO whose company got away from him. Indeed, if you were to read this article, Angelo Mozilo of Countrywide Settles Fraud Case for $67.5 Million in the NYTimes.com, you might feel bad from him. However, if you start with the Wikipedia article about him and work your way out onto Google, you can see he is anything but a half decent CEO you should feel sorry for. Indeed, he has been listed as one of the worst American CEOs of all time. The $67.5 million fine is partially being paid by Countrywide and is only a fraction of his overall worth. The currently closing part of the Wikipedia article sums it up this way: he was “widely regarded as one of the chief malefactors in the home mortgage
fiasco that nearly collapsed the US financial system, (and he) has been allowed
to keep most of his fortune, deny responsibility for his harmful
actions, and avoid prison.”

In a way, it is too bad he paid the fine. It would have been better for him to suffer a lengthy trail. Mozilo was responsible for weapons of mass financial destruction. He should have to undergo a greater ordeal than he has.

There’s lots of people to have sympathy for in the meltdown of the U.S. financial system. This guy is not one of them.

That said, such a fine could be alot less, or the case could have even collapsed. A trial would have been more educational and reminded people of what has just occurred, as much as people would like to forget it.

The NYTimes.com has a great list here. It comes across as 5 items, but it is more, once you start adding the tape measure, etc.

One thing they left off the list is a level. It doesn’t have to be super expensive, and if you are only doing small projects, it can be small, but when it comes to doing things like putting up shelves, a level is essential. I’d also add a hacksaw. Those can be cheap as well, since you may not use them that often, but there will come a time when you are dealing with a difficult piece of metal and if you have a hacksaw, you’ll be glad you have it.

I agree with the choice of a jigsaw over a circular saw. The latter is great for doing lots of cuts, but a jigsaw is safer and more versatile. If you are getting a jigsaw, get good blades. Ask the people in the store. It will save you alot of time when it comes to actually cutting the wood.

I am sure the $220 drill is a great tool, but again, you might find the cheaper one does the job. Like the jigsaw, get good bits. It will make the job alot easier. And if it isn’t cordless, get a thick extension cord: you will likely need it.

Finally, get yourself a good set of safety glasses. That’s the first thing that should be on the list. Having once had a hammer head snap off and almost take out my eye — it was stopped by my real glasses — I cannot recommend it enough.  Make sure they fit and don’t slide off. If they are uncomfortable or loose, you will be tempted to take them off. You never want to do that.

After alot of complaints before the games, the NYTimes.com reports that Indian Officials Declare Success After Games.
It’s good to hear. It’s also one of a string of successes by the nations that are rising up in the 21st century, nations like China, Brazil and South Africa. I would not be surprised to see Russia going for an Olympic bid again sometime in the next 20 years.

One thing the article points out though, which I think is true: the events themselves don’t change the countries as much as highlight the new wealth and influence and character of the countries hosting the games. Organizers of the Games like to say the events will transform the countries hosting them. But I think the countries are already harnessing the transformations underway in those places. Those transformations would be going on with or without the event. It’s just not as visible. I especially don’t think these events change the culture of the host countries. It’s the underlying transformations that are occurring that are doing that. For example, China will change, not because it hosted the Olympic games, but because of the increasing wealth of the country and the significant urbanization that is underway.

This is good in so many ways.

YouTube – ROX – I Don’t Believe (Official HD Video)

Over at the blog, CARNET DE DESSINS, Bénédicte is demonstrating what can be done with the very cool iPhone/iPod Touch app, Zen Brush. It has quite alot of features, including the ability to post your results online. Price? A mere $2.99!

If that’s too much for you, check out the Buddha Board app. That’s FREE. I have a Buddha Board. It’s a great way to relax and create. But it’s hardly portable, while the Buddha Board app is free.

It is amazing at the quality and more importantly the value of iPhone apps. It’s truly remarkable.

(Image of bird linked to from Bénédicte’s blog. She has an art blog that I highly recommend you visit.)

The blog the Burger Lab is tackling this Internet meme of the McDonald’s burgers that don’t go bad by using a much more scientific approach. As they note, they are starting with:

1. A plain McDonald’s hamburger, stored on a plate at room temperature.
2. A homemade burger of the same weight and dimensions as a McDonald’s burger (I was fine using a store-bought bun, because who bakes their own buns?)
3. A McDonald’s hamburger patty on a store-bought bun.
4. A homemade patty on a McDonald’s bun.
5. A McDonald’s hamburger stored in its original packaging.
6. A McDonald’s hamburger stored in a zipper-lock bag.
7. A plain Quarter Pounder.
8. A homemade quarter pounder.

And now they are going to test them. It should be interesting to see their results. Go to their blog to find out more.

(Photo of some of the burgers that they are testing.)

I should add that this reminds me of the experiments that Louis Pasteur did to disprove the theory of spontaneous generation and support the theory of germs. Ok, it’s not nearly as important, but the thinking is similar.

Is captured, not surprisingly, at The Sartorialist blog.

I love this photo, perhaps because it reflects my style, all the way to the bike he has! (Mine is blue, and my camera is a Diana F+, and….I am not a fraction of the photographer he is, but never mind. :))

If you don’t know who he is, you can find out more here: Bill Cunningham (photographer) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

I see alot of perplexed people asking: why is it that the President is slow on pushing forward certain things he said he would, and yet as soon as some legal development breaks in his favour, the Department of Justice (DoJ) moves very quickly to appeal them. That doesn’t seem to make sense: why isn’t the DoJ working with the President on this?

The reason for this is succinctly explained in this story, Justice Department to appeal same-sex marriage ruling – CNN. Key quote:

“The Justice Department is defending the statute, as it traditionally does when acts of Congress are challenged,” said Department of Justice spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler. “As a policy matter, the president has made clear that he believes DOMA is discriminatory and should be repealed. The Department of Justice has a longstanding practice of defending federal statutes when they are challenged in court, including by appealing adverse decisions of lower courts.”

It’s up to Congress to change the laws. It’s up to the President to support, oppose, sign or veto said laws. And it’s up the the Department of Justice to enforce them.

Zooniverse does some cool crowdsourcing work. You can do amateur astronomomy work — they have alot of projects for this — and now they have Old Weather – Our Weather’s Past, the Climate’s Future as well. (found via Kottke.) Interesting for anyone, I think this would be a great thing for teachers to get students involved in. Also a great hobby for folks that has a great benefit.

There’s a number of web sites, like this one: Happy Meal Project – Artist Sally Davies Photographs McDonald’s Happy Meal For 137 Days and this one: Year-old Happy Meal hasn’t decomposed (photos) – Knoxville healthy food | Examiner.com, where people expose Happy Meals for many many days and despite that, the Happy Meals don’t decompose. Why is that?

The answer you get from alot of people is:  Happy Meals are bad for you! Which is an answer, but not a very scientific one.

It’s more likely the case, as one of the commentators noted, that:

The reason the Happy Meal appears not to change during the extended time on the table is the fact that the bread, beef and fried potatoes have VERY LITTLE MOISTURE in them. Dried meat keeps for years. The fries were basket fried in hot oil causing most of the moisture to evaporate as steam while they cooled. The Beef patty is fried on a flat grill causing much the same condition. The bread is stable and dry but would (and does) mold in less dessicated climates. Anyone familiar with food dehydration will find nothing odd or disquieting about that fact that dry food tends to stay decomposition free in dry climates. In fact, organic meats and potatoes prepared the way McDonald’s prepares its food would have stayed just as changeless for the same period of time. 

The photographer obviously knows this as she clearly asked for the burger without ketchup, mustard, pickles or diced onions – something McDonald’s only does on request – to keep the burger dry. This is a mean spirited trick perpetrated on a public who should know better.

Now I don’t know if this is a mean spirited trick or not, but it is a fact that Happy Meals are very dry, and dryness is a key condition as to whether or not something gets moldy.

There are other things besides dryness, too. The burgers and french fries are high in fat and salt which can add to the preservative nature of the food. As well as.. well, McDonald’s use preservatives in their food! And McDonald’s strives to keep their establishments clean, which decreases the chance of mold landing on your food. (Indeed, in one of these experiments, some mold did appear on a Happy Meal hamburger next to a very moldy hamburger that was not McDonald’s but likely contaminated the other.)

If you want more nutritional information on McDonald’s Happy Meals, you can go here. If your child is eating Happy Meals, try to aim for combos lower on the list. According to this site, children 1 to 3 years old should only have 800 mg of sodium a day, yet some Happy Meals exceed that. Not to mention that they have alot of fat and saturated fat. A hamburger, apple slices and either milk or apple juice will reduce the amount of salt and fat and boost the number of other vitamins and minerals in the meal.

Happy Meals are not the most nutritional meal you can put together for your child. If you can offer them a more nutritional meal that they will like and eat, then by all means, that’s your best choice. But make your choice based on facts, not on sensational photos and articles.

(Photo from the first article. I’ve included it to illustrate the comment that the burger is obviously very dry. McDonald’s food is dry generally, but you may not notice this because they also give you large drinks.)

Normally I am not a big fan on the light or the look of low energy light bulbs, but I like this one from Plumen and I hope it is a sign of things to come.  I found these at the blog  Apartment Therapy New York and I think you should check it out for some great examples of how they make space brighter and more attractive. Smart!

Well, it’s not easy,that’s for sure. And it’s not cheap, either. But it makes for a great story, and based on stories I can remember from reading 10 and 20 years ago, it is getting better. See History Eraser Button for a great run down of how one blogger managed to find a great place after puttin in alot of leg work and following a really good plan.

Solomon Burke died today. One of the great soul singers of the 60s, his music is everywhere, even if you aren’t aware of it. Here’s just a sample of how it lives on in songs such as “Cry to Me”, first performed by him:

And here’s Duffy from 2008

There’s lots more. Not surprising.

 

Rick Mercer Rants are always good. This one is especially good, given the focus on the It Gets Better campaign. I’m proud to post this here, and as someone who fell into the geek camp and was on the receiving end of alot of bullying, I’d like to add that I agree with Rick and others, that it gets better and it will get better for you is without a doubt. That must seem impossibly hard to imagine as a kid, but it’s true. I know the focus is on gay kids and others belonging to the GLBTQ community, and I think that is especially important. For all those kids out there who are not a member of that group, but are still the subject of abuse, you still need to hear that it will get better. And it will. But Rick says it better than me. Here he is:

Never let them get you down.

YouTube – RMR: Rick’s Rant – Bullying – It Gets Better

I love spaghetti and meatballs (with tomato sauce, of course), but I am really looking forward to making this version. They’ve done a nice job of adding new ingredients (ground lamb to the pork and beef is one thing, lots of garlic and some balsamic vinegar to the tomato sauce). And it looks like this:

Nice! Check out this recipe: Totally Tender Meatballs in Tomato Sauce from the Apartment Therapy / The Kitchn blog.