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February 17, 2009

From the height of this place

At Google we are all technology optimists. We intrinsically believe that the wave upon which we surf, the secular shift of information, communications, and commerce to the Internet, is still in its early stages, and that its result will be a preponderance of good.
via googleblog.blogspot.com

The whole article strikes a chord within me. If you haven't read it, do. I'm impressed by its optimism. There's wisdom, too, in the author's predictions for the future of the internet. I'm blown away by Google's "observations on the future of the Internet for all of us to assess, consider, and carry as we do our work."

THIS is the kind of article that leads.

Describing Googlers, the author is surely describing all of us who live and work online: "We are standing at a unique moment in history which will help define not just the Internet for the next few years, but the Internet that individuals and societies around the world will traverse for decades. As Googlers our responsibility is nothing less than to help support the future of information, the global transition in how it is created, shared, consumed, and used to solve big problems. Our challenge is to steer incessantly toward greatness, to never think small when we can think big, to strive on with the work Larry and Sergey began over ten years ago, and from this task we will not be moved."

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February 17, 2009

Our Inside Passage

I hope you enjoy this gallery of photos I've taken around our beautiful west coast "Inside Passage" (View Google Map). Vancouver, BC, Canada, and on up the coastline.... Sunshine Coast... Desolation Sound... oh, I love being out there on a boat!
[See my later post about Desolation Sound!]

                                                                                       

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February 16, 2009

PLEASE VOTE for Ian!

Our video application for "The Best Job in the World" (Island Caretaker) has been accepted and now appears on the Island Reef website. Please watch (it's only 1 minute) and PLEASE VOTE! As many times as you want! THANK YOU!
 
(If you have any friends who might get into the spirit, please send them this link and ask them to vote too.)
 
Big thanks to Mike and Evan for some of the filming, and a huge thanks to Evan for all his work putting the video together, editing, advising, etc.
 
Here we go.............woooohooooo............
http://www.islandreefjob.com/#/applicants/watch/LoMV9Kw4GDQ
(be patient; sometimes the website is so busy that it takes minutes for the page to load....to vote, mouse-over on the "rating" stars)
 
Thanks!

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February 12, 2009

could you Australians please comment?

About that job app. for Hamilton Island, AU. (my post below)
 
A friend just asked me if I would be OK living with the poisonous flora and fauna there. Well thank you VERY much! because I hadn't even thought about the poisonous fellas until then. Actually, "poisonous" doesn't usually worry me, but the S word (shhh! snakes) always creeps me out, and I know there are poisonous ones galore in that country. But funny thing is, I just realized that my subconscious has been separating the islands from the mainland in terms of everything like that. Those S fellas, they couldn't possibly be living on islands!
 
Anyway, then I was stupid enough to go and google "whitsunday islands poisonous" and the search results are long, each one listing yet another item..... fish, frogs, spiders, anenomes, jellyfish, sting-rays, palms, flowers, S-words, and more. Arg! God has a warped sense of humor, doesn't she, putting those things in such beautiful environments. And in the water! now that's simply cruel (to us humans, at least).
 
So tell me, you Aussies, what will it really be like living there, in terms of these things?

   

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February 11, 2009

Heading for Paradise!

If you're on the 'net much, you already know about The Best Job In The World. My parter Ian has just sent in his application to get the job. Takes a while to get application videos approved and on their "latest applicants" page, so in the meantime here's your preview.
 
I think he's the only person so far to market himself as a representative of the baby boomer generation, and the only one so far who's playing a didjeridoo in the application video. Not to mention his huge list of qualifications! Hope these things make the decision-makers realize that he stands out among the thousands and is perfect for the job!

Get the Flash Playerto see this player.

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February 4, 2009

Posterous People Are So Creative

Here I'm trying out my new Posterous Bookmarklet to add the snippet illustration below (adding this directly as I read their own blog post). Those guys keep coming up with more and more great tools. I'm impressed.

In this post-creation box from the bookmarklet, I'd like to see "TAGS" in the Advanced Options. Please? n Thanks!

 

via posterous.com

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January 28, 2009

Social Networking: see how YOU fit in the data

Do you have a profile on FaceBook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Yahoo, YouTube, Classmates?

I fall into an "older" demographic, so I found it interesting to read the results of a very recent (Dec.2008) "tracking survey" on adults using social networking sites. (Hey, guyz, who are you callin' an adult!?) 
 
"The share of adult internet users who have a profile on an online social network site has more than quadrupled in the past four years -- from 8% in 2005 to 35% now."
 
PEW/Internet report on Adults and Social Network Websites:
http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Adult_social_networking_data_memo_FINAL.pdf
For a quick-look, I'm attaching a copy of their table of data from page 5 of that report.
 
For my age, I fit in a relatively small 10% group. Yay for me!
...........
(Brian M, sorry, they don't have stats on addictive behavior at these sites. But they do say that "more than one third (37%) visit their profile daily.")
...........

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January 25, 2009

Feed The Pig if you are 25 to 34 years old

Are you 25 to 34 years old? Do you have financial problems? Oh. Um. Duh, doesn't everybody?

My son fits that age demographic and we just found this relatively new site.

It's FUN and jam packed with Really Helpful resources. I thought it was a very 'unfortunate' site name and theme. My son tells me it's not, for his demographic. Well ok, what do I know?

Quoting from the site:
 
The goal of the campaign is to encourage and help Americans aged 25 to 34 to take control of their personal finances.

Specifically, on this site you can:

  • Pick a personality similar to yours in Me Save? Then choose a set of spending habits you want to change or break and find out how much you can save over a month, a year or even 35 years!
  • Sync your Feed the Pig profile with Facebook or your iGoogle Homepage to track what you can save over time.
  • Find out how much you can save no matter what course your life takes in the 5% Challenge.
  • Take a quiz to see how well you understand the psychology behind our saving and spending habits.
  • Get savings tips, which you can rate and comment on.
  • Talk to others about how they “Feed the Pig.”
  • Watch and listen to Feed the Pig TV and radio ads.
  • Learn a ton more about saving through our Resources section and our companion site, 360financialliteracy.org, which has advice for people at all stages of life.
I did the Beat Your Brain quiz and only got 6 out of 12. Bleah, I thought I was good at running my finances.... guess we all have something more to learn.

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January 25, 2009

what's with 'hallelujah'?

Further to my previous post (my new fav. version of the song Hallelujah: http://kate-is-pre.posterous.com/omg-and-hallelujah).....
 
In case you didn't read the article in MacLeans magazine, here's a link to it:
What’s with that song ‘Hallelujah’?
by Brian D. Johnson, Thursday, January 8, 2009
 
Says he, "The song has become pop music’s closest thing to a sacred text. 'Hallelujah is a masterful meditation on love, sex, God and music,' says Daniel J. Levitin, professor of psychology at McGill University, and the author of the bestselling book The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature. 'Lyrically it does what only Leonard Cohen can do, and do so effectively—combine big, universal ancient and spiritual themes with the right-here and right-now.'..."

"Partisans of rival versions have sent debate ringing from the Internet to academia. In an exhaustive treatise on Hallelujah, professor Allan Moore, a British musicologist at Surrey University, mixes erudite theory of 'appogiatural rises' and 'glottal stops' with snatches of Web chat..."

So again, here's the link to my new-fav. version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2NEU6Xf7lM

Oh my.

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January 15, 2009

switching to a hybrid makes little sense for me

I own the car I've dreamed about owning since I was a teenager (and that was a few centuries ago): a Mustang convertible. Gas guzzler, polluter, all those thoughts just ran though your head, right?
 
So, finally I get it all paid off last year and in the same year I start getting the guilts about the environmental impact it's having.
 
There are lots of alternative, "environmentally healthy" cars to choose from. Go green, "they" say.
 
But here's the thing. The two things, actually.
 
1. My car is paid for, and I'd have to add a minimum of $20,000 to what I'd get if I sold it in order to purchase one of the alternatives (one that meets my needs in terms of size and features). So "going environmental" is going to cost me a lot of money. Guilt money, I suppose you'd call it. Money I can't afford.
 
But now to the more important point. And in everything I've read (a lot), nobody in the media has ever mentioned this, so call me THE FIRST. I hope more people start to get this, and soon:
 
2. If I sell my car and get an environmentally correct alternative, I'm NOT helping the environment because...
2.1....I'd be encouraging car makers to make yet another car, and car-making adds to negative environmental impact;
 
and
2.2....after I sell my gas-guzzling, pollution-emitting dream-car, it's still going to be guzzling gas and emitting stuff! Somebody else will be driving it around! A change of ownership changes nothing, in terms of the environment. 
So I'm going to save the environment at the level I'm capable of and keep my car. I'm not going to buy an alternative until my current car is ready for the junk heap. In which case, it will still add negatively to the environment by adding to the pile of dead cars. It won't be biodegrading. But then, neither will all those hybrids and electrics that the car manufacturers are busy pumping out from their assembly lines.
 
Instead, I'll drive less, walk more, and keep my dream-car, ok? I'll actually be "saving the environment" more than all those people out there who have become victims of the media harangue, have sold their politically incorrect cars to somebody else who'll drive around and pollute, and have assuaged their guilt while lining the pockets of new-car manufacturers.
 

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