Category: new!

Want to be “green”? Keep the SUV…ditch the dog.

Yikes! If you believe this, it looks like you may be greener to own an SUV than a dog! (Cat owners may smile at this…)

Now I would argue that if you are going to have a vehicle at all, you should aim for something greener than an SUV. As for dogs, it’s clearly not a choice of: should I get rid of the dog or the SUV. Still, it’s interesting food for thought. See here for more: Is Owning a Dog Worse than Owning an SUV? – GOOD Blog – GOOD

Crossdressing for freedom in Iran

Why are these men dressed as women? Apparently it happened when the activist Majid Tavakoli was arrested in Iran, and the government released (doctored?) photos of him wearing a chador and a scarf around his head in a suspected attempt to embarass him. Instead, it encourage other men in and out of Iran to post photos of themselves dressed the same way as a brilliant way to protest against the government and their actions.

 See IRAN: Apparent attempt at humiliating activist sparks widespread hijab backlash in the Los Angeles Times for more details.

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Mitchell Kanashkevich’s Travel and Photography Blog


Mitchell’s Travel and Photography Blog not only has great photographs, like this one, but good posts on his travels around the world. He also writes well about photography and his thoughts on it. Anyone interested in good photography and how to make it should pay his blog a visit. I am taking the liberty of linking to this photo of his to encourage you to go see the rest of his site.

French Health Care beats American Health Care

If you are to the left of the political spectrum in the U.S., then this article, Why I Prefer French Health Care by the head of Reason Magazine, is not going to tell you anything you don’t already know.

But if you are to the right of the political spectrum, you owe it to yourself to read it. The author has lots of experience with the French and the U.S. health care system, and he makes the case for the French system over the U.S. with strong personal examples. And face it: reason.com is all for free minds and free markets, and yet they (or the author) argues this.

Americans deserve better health care. Certainly they deserve care that’s as good as the French (and Canadian, etc.) Hears hoping they get it.

Goats: a great Christmas gift idea

Yes, that’s right, these things:

If you have a friend or loved one who doesn’t really need anything for Christmas, why not buy a goat for them? Now, if you go here, you will see that if you Donate a Goat you Give Charitable Gifts to a Family in Need via the program Oxfam America Unwrapped. It provides food, fertilizer, and empowers women. Not bad for $50.

Or consider this: if you have to buy a present for someone you would rather not, you can give them a pile of manure! How awesome is that? 🙂 Either way you can helps others and help yourself with your gift list.

Oxfam America has a video describing the program. Watch it, then go get someone a goat or something else for this December.

The Big Banks blow off Obama

What’s impressive about this photo is who’s not in it. Namely, the heads of Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup. Apparently bad weather meant that they could not make the meeting. But really, if they were looking for money, do you think they would have missed this? No, me neither.

I find this interesting. Clearly they think they no longer need taxpayers help. Which is good, in a way. They probably think that it’s unlikely that Obama will do the same thing that Gordon Brown is doing in the UK with the Bonus Tax. And they must have been checking their Blackberries when Paul Volcker was lecturing them recently. Otherwise they would have made this meeting, even if they had to have their limo drivers drive them here.

Post meeting, it will be interesting also to see what happens between when Health Care gets settled and when the 2010 elections get going. Either Obama and team take their eye off this ball and focus on something else, or, they remember this meeting when the bankers decided to try and show them who’s the boss. My guess is that beating up the big banks will make for good electioneering by the Dems. So if they decide to ignore him when Obama Presses Giant Banks to Make More Loans then he’ll give them something to pay attention to later.

If you like Scotland, Johnnie Walker or Robert Carlyle, watch this

It’s a well filmed, single shot monologue by the great Scotch actor, Robert Carlyle, walking down the road in some remote place in Scotland, talking about Johnnie Walker blended whisky. Sounds simple, yes? It’s actually really well done. Like I said, one take, but with all the props in it as Carlyle strides down the road matching perfectly his monologue, it must have been very challenging to do.

I love the scenery as well as the use of English subtitles, despite Carlyle speaking English (but of course with a Scotch accent).

Brilliant.

YouTube – Johnnie Walker – The Man Who Walked Around The World

Art Interiors / Emily Bickell update (or, if you are STILL Christmas shopping… :))

The art interiors festival of smalls is still going on, and they still have lots of great art work by Canadian artists selling at a very low cost (I would say “cheap”, but there is nothing inferior about these paintings).

I got an update from Emily Bickell that she is sending more of her work to the sale, which is great, because her painting are selling fast!

Which gets me to my last point: if you are STILL Christmas shopping and you find the thought of crushing in with the crowds and lining up with the lineups depressing, you can order online from art interiors! But do it fast: the paintings ain’t hanging around (in any sense of the phrase).

Finally, here is another of Emily’s work, which is related to but different from her abstract water works.

I am a big fan of Christopher Pratt and Winslow Homer and this painting and the ones like it remind me of that, though it is calmer than some of Homer’s painting and not as stark as some of Pratt’s. Great stuff, all, though. And since you likely can’t afford Homer or Pratt…

To paraphrase Edna Mode: Go! Shop! Buy! And tell me all about it when you get something… 🙂

Emily Bickell / Red Sailboat / Affordable Artwork / Canadian Art / Gallery / Framing / Canvas / Art Interiors – Toronto, ON

Great movies posters of the last decade by Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert has a list of what he considers the best movie posters of the last decade. And no doubt he has seen alot. This is one of them here (it helps to step back from the poster to see more detail).

Many Hollywood movie posters tend to be predicable, with the art work often taking a back seat to the text. In most of these posters, the art work is predominant.

There are quite a few posters here at Great movie posters of the decade – Roger Ebert’s Journal. It’s worth seeing them all.

If you are going to run a morning marathon, train in the morning

I was really surprised by this article in the NYTimes.com because it is saying that even with the same workout done the same way, your heartrate could be higher in the evening than the morning. The article goes on to discuss why this could be. It’s fascinating in itself, but as someone who trains mostly later in the day but runs early morning marathons and other long distance races, it’s also concerning. I train with a heart rate monitor, and my tempo runs are based on my heart rate later in the day. When I run the race, I am assuming my heart rate is going to be the same for the same effort. But in fact, to get the same heart rate in a morning race, I might have to be running alot faster. This sounds like it could be a good thing, but you could also end up over-exerting yourself and not having enough strength in your legs to get to the finish line.

The net of it is, if you are going to run a morning marathon, do some long distance and tempo runs in the morning as well to have a better understanding of what pace you should be running at come race day.

Beware of the new Facebook panel asking for your privacy settings

Why should you beware? Because it appears what they are recommending is that you be alot more open with your data. That is certainly the case with me. For my settings, I restrict my settings to “Only Friends” for most people. For my photos, I restrict that mainly to close friends and family.  However, what Facebook advised is essentially making most of that open to others beyond that. So, if your old settings were locked down like mine are, pick “Old Settings”.

Facebook is making this look like they are offering more Privacy, but what they really want (need?) you to do is open up for their own benefit. I think you should pick what works best for you.

I also didn’t like that I needed to have to move my mouse over an Old Settings radio button before I could see my old settings. They could have made it alot more obvious. I suspect most people will have a hard time with the panel and pick settings that don’t work for them.

That’s just me. You need to decide for yourself what your privacy settings should be. I just don’t see Facebook being all that helpful in that regard.

Phoenix in Paris: great live footage from LA BLOGOTHEQUE

I think Phoenix is great. And I absolutely love Paris. So I have been to the blog, LA BLOGOTHEQUE, quite a few times recently because they have a number of great videos of Phoenix performing live on the streets of Paris, as if they were wandering street musicians.

Here’s one of them, but I recommend you go to that site to see all three. I picked this video because it shows their set up nicely. I thought it was pretty cool how the Tivoli device was connected to the keyboard, too.

Go see the rest. If you understand French, check out the rest of the site. It appears well done.

A giant iceberg heading towards Australia

While they say it has nothing to do with global warming, the fact that there is a giant iceberg heading towards Australia is pretty incredible, especially when you thinking that, according to CNN.com,

“A massive iceberg — more than twice the size of New York’s Manhattan island — is drifting slowly toward Australia, scientists said Wednesday.

The iceberg, measuring 140 square km (54 square miles), cleaved off an ice shelf nearly 10 years ago and had been floating near Antarctica before commencing on its unusual journey north.”

Twice the size of Manhattan!! Not quite 2012, but still, very striking.

On using Google Tools

Recently I started using Google Wave. I like it, though I think it will take a while before it takes off.Using it, I found myself using other Google tools again. Tools I hadn’t used in awhile. Here’s some notes on that:

Google Desktop: actually, I never stopped using this. I find it essential for finding information on my computer quickly. A great tools. Love it.
Gmail: I still use Gmail from time to time, but I have been using Yahoo Mail for some time, and I find I like the UI better, plus all my “stuff” is there. Like it, but like Yahoo more.
Google Reader: I think Reader is a good tool. I tend to use a desktop feedreader, Feedreader. I like that too, but I am thinking of switch to Google Reader. I like it.
Google Calendar: I started using Calendar again. It’s a good tool, and the more I play with it, the move I like it. I will write more about this, but I think I love it.
Google App Server: I played around with this, but it seemed not ready for prime time. I am meh when it comes to this.
Google Maps: I like Maps, but I have had errors with it. I always check both it and Yahoo maps. I also like the APIs for Yahoo maps better.
Google Docs: I am more of a Zoho fan than a Docs fan, but I tend to like both of them, but I don’t use either one nearly enough. I like it though
Picasa: I thought it was ok, but I like flickr better. Alot. I also just like using Facebook.
iGoogle: I find iGoogle invaluable. I use it as my dashboard. I check my Internet mail, todos…all kinds of things. Love it.
Google itself: I like Google, but I don’t like the result. I like Clusty.com better for better searching.
Youtube: I like YT alot, though I don’t do much with it. I am starting to like Vimeo.
Google Notebook: I was using this for awhile, but my use fell off. Perhaps I need to revisit it.

Other Google things I have used:

Google pages: I still have some up there, I think. Haven’t checked in awhile. I liked it. It was a good place to play around with web pages.
Google Mashup tool: I looked at this, but I didn’t think it provided much value for what it did. I guess others felt the same, for it is discontinued.

Posted via email from Bernie Michalik’s posterous site

How to create more secure passwords: a simple yet effective approach

It’s important to have good quality passwords. Including a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers, and punctuation marks in your password will make for a tougher password than a simple word (w1Nt.e!r is a much harder password to break than winter) . However, remembering such passwords can be difficult.

To achieve this, one approach is to use email addresses as passwords. Many email addresses contain underscores and numbers and all of them contain the @ sign and periods. If you use email addresses as passwords, your passwords will automatically be more secure.

Now obviously you should not use a easy to guess email address as your password. You don’t even have to use a real email address: me@myT0ughPassw0rd.heck.ya.times.1000 will also work well. The challenge is to have a password you can recall with one that is harder to break. This approach helps with that.

Big changes coming to Facebook

Anyone who uses Facebook should know that it’s Privacy Day at Facebook. What this means, according to Mashable, is that it will be more straightforward to change your privacy settings. You may not think much about that now, but you should. For Facebook is working with Google to make more Facebook content searchable. You might think all those photos and other things you’ve posted there are private, but you may be in for a surprise later when it all suddenly shows up on a Google search.

Perhaps a good resolution for the new year’s is to change your privacy settings there (and think about that in general).

TIME on Climategate

TIME magazine does a good job of answering the question in this title, The Stolen E-Mails: Has ‘Climategate’ Been Overblown? Highly recommended.

The short of it is yes, it has been overblown.

If you are a skeptic of global warming, good for you, if you apply the same skepticism for anything you hear from the scientific community. Good scientists are skeptics themselves, and challenging what scientists put forth makes for better science.

If you are convinced that global warming caused by people is true and terrible, then I think this setback is actually a good thing, even if in the short term it may not seem that way. I believe this is true, namely, that “climate scientists and advocates will need to rethink how they engage with critics. Judith Curry, an atmospheric scientist at Georgia Tech, wrote in a much-discussed blog post that researchers need to make climate data much more open and transparent, and that scientists need to be wary of falling into what she calls “climate tribalism.””  I am a strong proponent of open data and open systems, and trying to close down the discussion leads to bad science and bad politics. I hope the climate scientists come at this with even more rigour and more force. The forces against them are going to be there whether or not they are open and practice good science or closed and practice bad science: the aim should be for more transparency and more research.

How to Handle a Troll

If you have a blog, especially if you blog on topics that might be personal or political or contentious, then you may run into trolls. If you are going to blog seriously, then you need to know how to deal with them. This article will help: How To Handle A Troll, and Beat Them at Their Own Game.

While this article is aimed at usenet users, for bloggers, alot still applies. However, one thing I would recommend is that you moderate all your comments. It helps to nip trolls in the bud. Also, I am not sure I care to beat them. I am happy just to see them move along.

For Gerhard Richter fans…


On March 24th, Dietmar Elger is coming to the AGO to speak about Gerhard Richter. As the AGO describes,

“Noted curator Dietmar Elger has written the first biography of Gerhard Richter – a foundational portrait of this artist and his profoundly influential oeuvre. With full access to Richter and his archives, Elger offers unprecedented insight into Richter’s life and work. Elger explores Richter’s childhood in Nazi Germany; his years as a student and mural painter in communist East Germany; his time in the West during the turbulent 1960s and ’70s, when student protests, political strife, and violence tore the Federal Republic of Germany apart; and, his rise to international acclaim during the 1980s and beyond. Richter has always been a difficult personality to parse, and the seemingly contradictory strands of his artistic practice have frustrated and sometimes confounded critics. In this talk Elger presents a Richter who is far more candid and vivid than ever before.”

If you go to the site, you can buy tickets now. Being a big Gerhard Richter fan, I plan to.

Friday Fun Music

I love this video! Why? Well, it’s got:

  •  Neko Case rocking out her inner Stevie Nicks/Pat Benetar
  • the New Pornographers channeling their inner ZZ Top
  • a fantastic cover — almost note perfect — of that 1982 hit by Toronto (from back in the day of bands like Chicago, Boston…)
  • Napoleon Dynamite like characters chair jumping for money
  • crazied women screaming at said chair jumpers
  • this woman master of ceremonies in a tight black leather outfit that could have walked out of a David Lynch film
  • and…AND…it’s got this corpulent fellow dressed up like a vampire doing…well, I’m not sure what
  • and so much more!

YouTube – New Pornographers – Your Daddy Don’t Know

and if you want to see the original: YouTube – Toronto – Your Daddy don’t know

Fun!

Montreal (smoked meat) invades NYC (and it’s pastrami)

NYC is great for many reasons, not the least of those is the famous pastrami on rye sandwiches that you can get there. And Montreal is equally famous for it’s smoked meat on rye. Now Montreal’s famous sandwich is coming to New York, and it’s stirring things up (Between the Rye, Pastrami’s Canadian Rival – City Room Blog – NYTimes.com).

Whatever else is said in the article — and if you want to know the ins and outs of these two famous sandwiches, you should read it — I think that New York is lucky to have such a great addition to all the good food found there. Enjoy! (In moderation, of course. :)) If you are in the vicinity of a place that serves such a sandwich, I say: take a break and enjoy one.

Being the President is both easy and hard

It is not easy running for President of the U.S. or the leader of any country, in general. It’s a demanding job. So why do I say it is easy? Well, I got the idea from this chart:

Look at Ronald Reagan’s approval rating. I think this is representative of alot of leaders, and it basically boils down to this: if you want to be elected or re-elected, the economy has to be good and you have to be scandal-free.  If you can manage that, your popularity will be high enough to get re-elected. If you can’t, then you don’t get re-elected. Now that’s very hard, because it is very hard, if not impossible, to control the economy. And it can be very hard to keep all your staff scandal free. Which also makes the job easy, once you realize that much of getting rehired (i.e. re-elected) is out of your hands! Sure, you can do alot of things. But getting re-elected is mostly about the economy and scandals.