Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Month: December 2010
still confused by Net Neutrality?
I am.
At first it seemed that the best case scenario would be to have a government owned digital superhighway … and let competition innovate. And keep prices low.
But can the government do anything efficiently?
If corporations build “the tubes”, shouldn’t they be able to charge what they want for using them?
Certainly. If there was competition.
But most people have 3 choices: phone company or cable company or satellite. Sadly, that’s not competition enough.
If the Internet Service providers (TELUS, Shaw, Verizon, etc.) have their way, your internet service will be about as good as your current TV service.
The worst case scenario is explained in a fun, graphic way on a new website. Click through to see it – TheOpenInter.net
Scary.
(via TechCrunch)
happy Birthday, Rockin’
In the spirit of ShewFestivus, a gift of meat.
From Harley Morenstein from Montreal, co-creator of the YouTube channel Epic Meal Time:
We made a gingerbread house. But instead of gingerbread, we used steak and sausage meat as mortar. We made a candy-bacon roof and puff-pastry rafters for the house, we made snow with mashed potatoes and we flooded it with Cheese Whiz. We made bacon-grease Jack Daniel’s eggnog, and Coca-Cola-Jack Daniel’s ribs for the fence. There were also ham doors and windows. The final structure was almost a foot high, 11 inches by 11 inches by 11 inches …
Rocco might have stolen this image from my blog, not crediting the fact that I cut and pasted it first.
social networking for booklovers
There are many options out there (Goodreads, Shelfari, Google Books, Anobii, WeRead), including some good ones for sharing only with Facebook friends.
About 20min research leads me to believe that the best of the bunch is LibraryThing.
It got a great review on PC Mag. And by a user jameswharris.
Check it out at librarything.com.
Sadly, I still find LibraryThing too crude. Having no widget for this WordPress.com blog is a deal breaker. … I’ll wait until something better comes along.
Leave a comment if I’m missing the perfect social network for books.
P.S.
I saw a number of warnings about one competitor, now owned by Amazon – Shelfari. … Avoid.
good day for Obama
Congrats Mr. President.
Globe and Mail – Obama finding a way through the legislative ‘gridlock’
Though most of the positive press features DADT, I’m far happier about the New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty). A symbolic event, perhaps.
But if it ever comes to nuclear war, we need Russia and USA to stand together against the aggressor.
START is a step forward, supported by former President George H. W. Bush and all six former Republican Secretaries of State.
I want to thank the 13 Republicans who defied their party’s leadership, voting to ratify the treaty.
… Before we get excited that the USA has got their act together, check the latest misguided CIA initiative:
WikiLeaks Task Force = … WTF
Is there a brain in that organization? WTF ??
best email software?
Gmail.
According to Lifehacker readers.
I assume hotmail did not get even 1 vote … though they’ve added a few features recently.
In any case, email is dying … especially amongst young people. They’d rather text or Facebook message.
Poisonwood Bible
The Poisonwood Bible (1998) is a bestselling novel about a missionary family, the Prices, who in 1959 move from Georgia to … the Belgian Congo …
… to save African souls.
Like most readers, I love how the narrative alternates between the four daughters.
Adah is my favourite.
Adah Price (14 at start of the novel) – Hemiplegic from birth, Adah is silent, brilliant in math and languages, witty, skeptical, sarcastic, envious of her twin sister, and prone to self-pity.
She reminded me a little of the brilliant Norma Cenva, a congenital dwarf, mathematical genius. One of the most important characters in the entire Dune franchise.
And Owen Meany, the malformed dwarf, “God’s instrument”, one of the great characters of fiction.
In some ways the book is cliché, though. I immediately thought of Mosquito Coast (1986) and the brilliant film, The Gods Must be Crazy.
Yet it kept me going strong right up to about page 500. When the women flee after one of the daughters is killed.
The author lived in Congo as a child. The details feel real.
Barbara Kingsolver is an American novelist about my age who often writes about social justice.
In 2000, she established the Bellwether Prize to support “literature of social change.”
In the late 1990s she was a founder member of the Rock Bottom Remainders, a rock and roll band made up of published writers. Other band members include Amy Tan, Matt Groening, Dave Barry, and Stephen King. (That must have been fun.)
official website: kingsolver.com
Leave a comment if you liked the book. It’s really got me thinking.
the ‘wovel’ (wheeled shovel)
Need an awesome last minute gift for someone who lives in a snowy place?
Check the wovel. (Time magazine Best Invention 2006.)
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
(via Sierra Trading Post)
Rick McCharles 