I play a game called StarPirates. It’s more a Social Media MMO than a graphics one. Lots of community involvement, with Role Playing and Community-driven storyline development. Cool.
But sometimes we get random polls, like this one. Evidently it’s to match a debate from CBC’s the Debaters from this weekend past.
Vote – Which one do you want after dinner tonight?
Cake 51% [356 Votes]
Pie 49% [344 Votes]
Votes: 700
It’s essentially a dead heat. Let’s count the chads. Then eat both!
Most Cubicle Dwellers loathe their office space. The pale lighting, the unnatural fabrics, the coffee slurping of smelly rog in the corner all conspire to destory the fun of a work day. Oh and don’t get ‘em started on the commute. Ugh!
Well grass always seems greener when seen over a corporate wall, my friend. Working from home is far more stressful than an office. At least for me. Let me list the three big things I hate about you…err, I mean working from home.
1) Loneliness: you may hate that John always stops in to talk about the scores last night, or his dog’s movements, but my god at least he’s a human you see in person. IM chats are ok, but they are the Tofu of the chat world. I want steak.
2) Mixing of Fun/Work Zones: Cubicle Dwellers dream about talking their lunch in front of the tube, and catching up on last nights Dexter. Rocking! But then what happens at night? Do you sit on the exact same couch, watching the exact same TV program? If so then you’ll soon start to feel that your night shift is just like your day shift. When you work from home your kitchen and living room become part of your work space. It’s hard to take ‘em back for chill zones at night.
3) Long, Confusing Lists of Things to Do: It’s great to throw a load of laundry in while waiting for a call. But then that means your list of things to do during office hours just doubles up. Some can handle that well – I can’t. I need a short, clear list of goals for a day. If not, I start running in circles. And that drives everyone, including my downstairs neighbour, nuts.
I’ve thought about solutions for each of these, but the main one is to get out of the house.
Until next time, enjoy the cubicle….you don’t know how good you got it!
CF
Avatar, the latest release of James Cameron, is mesmerising. For many visual and storytelling reasons it’s the next truly great SciFi film – after Matrix. As with Matrix, the movie’s visual advances weren’t just showing off, they were used to aid storytelling. In fact it’d be hard to have made that movie come alive as it did without the amazing graphics.
I understand that true movie critics might have some issues with some technical sides – that’s beyond me. I do recognise also that if you wanted you could call “heavy handed” on criticism of how Canada specifically destroys communities while gathering “legal” resources for the benefit of shareholders. I disagree, as even the villains were perfectly rational and even kind characters. They just had different interests. So no mustache-twirling villains here.
But to say it’s simplistic – that’s just plain wrong.
The Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano says that despite “so much stupefying, enchanting technology,” there are “few genuine emotions.” Vatican Radio called it “rather harmless” but said the movie was no sci-fi masterpiece.
I disagree with a lot the Vatican says but stay out of it as that’s their business to help or mess up their followers as they please. But when they come into MY space, the SciFi space, and start spouting jibberish…that’s when they’re over the line.
No not me, I’m off to Cuba on Thursday. But my buddy Rob did a biiiiiiiiiiiit more travel. He’s in the Antarctic Ocean, on a tall ship.
“A cruise ship” you say?”
No. Listen carefully, a Tall Ship. Wood, masts, rigging — like they did 150 years back. Bloody hell!
Or better yet, read all about it here:
Sometimes Canada’s Telcos make it too easy. Not to get a plan at a reasonable price, nor to even avoid having to GET a plan. But rather in this case I mean they make it to easy to find topics to write blogs about.
Right now there is a HUGE marketing battle betwteen the 3 main telcos here to jam the iPhone 3G down every Canadian’s throat. So be it, we live in a marketing-oriented world. I ignore the crap tho and go check out the plans. For all Bell’s aggressiveness, Rogers has the best rate out of the two for what I want. Now, I go to evaluate telus and get this…
Wow…the page I am looking for is 404. The top result for “iphone Telus” can’t be found in google. Owwww…fire that SEO. today. Now.
Prepare to Energize! Punch it Chewy! Warp Factor 9 Ensign Crusher!
Whatever your declarative for interplanetary travel, warm it up, as Mars missions are looking more likely. One of the (many) huge problems with missions to Mars is the huge timeframe to get them there, and then back again. Not only is that a problem for the amount of time in spacem, and all that implies, but also the lay over time. See, unlike say a truck you can’t just launch the return jaunt anytime you like. You have to ensure that Earth and Mars are relatively close together. With the existing theories and engines, that’d mean a TWO year layover. And realistically there would be way to many issues, forseen and unforseen, on the ground to expect the Aresnauts to live during that. At least without having a series of missions to set up base camps.
The big win is that these are looking likely within a few weeks timeframe to get there, and the same to return. The win is the ion engine, built with a mix of US, Canadian and other’s know how. Cool! The big difference is payload, and firing times. Less fuel is used, but shot from the butt of the ship at much faster speeds. Neuton’s law of equal and opposite reactions mean that the rocket can indeed go much faster in the end, using less mass. A win all around.
And fun too; I mean don’t we all love saying “Ion Engines”, even if we’re just making fun of Star Trek techy talk? Heheheh…
Badluck, good luck. Interesting mix for a guy stuck in the mud in a river in Alberta, Canada. He was found by a patrol of firemen looking for a place to have an out of the way practice run later in the year. They were not looking for him, nor would anyone normally have been near where he was. If the young man believes in any deity, I’m sure their temple’s floor will be worn out by his knees over the next few months.
The details: Edmonton firefighters scouting an area for future exercises along the North Saskatchewan River heard calls for help from an 18-year-old man was suffering from hypothermia as he had been stuck overnight waist-deep in the “slow quicksand-like mud”. Although the weather was unseasonably mild that night, he was in bad shape and was taken to hospital for treatment for exposure.
Firefighter Sean Desmarais says it was “an amazing coincidence”. I’d say I know why the guy sunk into the mud — his arse was loaded with horseshoes…and now he’s used them all up.
National Hockey League’s Toronto Maple Leafs are on the way to the worst start in their team’s very checkered history. This year’s Leafs may be as bad as the Ballard era “Milk ‘em for all you can” Leafs. Which is actually a good thing as they need to spend a few years rebuilding. They have few players of quality in the minors, no goalie to speak of, and only memories of the teams that went deep into the playoffs in years past.
The crappiness of this year and next year’s Leafs could then be the best thing for them, right? After all the worst team in the league gets the top pick; and a few of those top picks are what are needed if you want to truly contend. I mean look at last year’s playoff winners; they have the first overall picks from 2 years in a row. That plus some solid second rounder lead to them getting the cup in all its glory.
So the Leafs just need to lose this and next year right? No. See after they started out crap, they traded those picks away. Yes that’s right, AFTER THEY STARTED OUT CRAP. So they managed to trade away their draft picks this year and next year for a player who is age 22. Oh and he’s injured and may not recover. That is perhaps the second worst trading move in the league’s history.
The only logic may be that Burke has done this to tell the team you have to win with what you have. So learn to win. Very much like the Spanish conquerors of Spain burning their boats to ensure that a message was sent of “win or die”.
OK, so they’ve absolutely screwed their rebuilding plan right? Yes, it’s true. But well at least they can trade away their free agents right? And they did that in the past years when they were tanking? No. See they haven’t signed anyone of great stature in the past while, and even in the year they decided to rebuild, the players that were here had no trade clauses. And they wouldn’t let themselves be traded.
Well at least they have the picks from those years they did poorly? Yes, but see they never did poorly enough. Most teams when they are close to a high pick, will not try to win their last few games. But the leafs are April and May teams. They do GREAT in the last 3 weeks before the playoffs. Never enough to squeak into the playoffs in recent times, but absolutely enough to ensure they get the worst of all worlds – no draft picks of value, and no playoffs.
Oh and the best part? These are supposed to be the A-list management team. The B-list was supposed to be worse, but I honestly can’t say that’s true. John Ferguson, the former Leafs GM, is a better GM than Brian Burke will ever pretend to be. At least he wanted to rebuild but wasn’t allowed to.
Well not exactly, but the cat was found in a Toronto neighbourhood called Roncesvalles.
According to the Toronto Star, these hairless mutants were found in an alley in this Polish neighbourhood. Once local delinquents’ hi-jinks had been ruled out, and a Toronto Vet had been called in, the world started on the path to welcoming a new breed. The breed, called theSphinx, is hairless. The most famous example is Mr. Bigglesworth from the Austin Powers’ trilogy. I wonder if Mike Myer’s being a Toronto native had anything to do with that…
So there you go, another Random Toronto, Ontario bit of Trivia.
It seems there is a really good reason to buy a legal copy of Windows. A substantial chunk of that money might go to ridding the world of Polio.
Bill Gates Foundation, Rotary International and the British and German governments today pledged $630 million over the next five years to vaccine and other programs designed to wipe out polio.
Since 1988, the WHO, the U.S. and other governments as well as charitable orgs such as Gates and Rotary have contributed $6 billion to eradicating polio. The international effort has cut polio cases by over 99 percent, from some 350,000 in 1988 to about 1,600 last year.
Full Story here:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=bill-gates-hands-over-millions-more-2009-01-21
Getting a stadium or a school named after you is cool, but really that’s more of an egotrip legacy thing than a true good to society. Eradicating a disease that has destroyed millions of lives last century, and untold millions before that? THAT is cool.
But I think that Bill’s greatest contribution isn’t contributing moral, organisational and financial support for this. Nor even MS Products that make my life easier. It’s that he made it cool for the mega rich to become real philanthropists. Warren Buffet, for a long time the second richest man in America, after dear Bill, is going to contribute the bulk of his wealth to support the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (story here). I imagine he won’t be the only one.
Whether you took a note from George Soros’ OSI (that gets 10 times the efficiency in project spending compared to the EU), or just did it on your own, it’s good stuff Bill. Well done.