An interesting quote from Plato that came about while reading an article about using games for team building exercises:
“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.”
Indeed – and what of those who do not play at all? What does that mean then?
I read an interestingly positioned take on DRM (Digitial Rights Management) today and thought it might be interesting to some of you as I know you are currently buying music and such from online stores. Online stores almost unilaterally use DRM on those files you’re buying, in case you were wondering. Apple’s ITunes store is right there at the top of the guilty list. It is interesting because it takes a look at how DRM actually hurts the consumer and offers nothing in return.
If you’re curious, its a simple 2-page article – its worth a quick read even to just gain awareness of some of the issues going on with DRM and electronic consumption.
Article title and link: “The big DRM mistake” by Scott Granneman
As some of you may know, Alisa and I have spent the last few weeks shopping for a new vehicle. It sounds like fun, but it’s been … educational. I think I know more about this car than many Ford salespeople out there, though our salesperson at Ocean Park Ford has been a real star. After much research and test driving, many nights of thoughts, budgeting, planning, etc, we have made our choice:
We purchased a 2006 model to obtain further discounts on the car. Costs are everything to a growing family! This left us with very few choices for cars left in Canada (I believe there were 4 or 5 when we first started test driving the car). By the time we selected the car they had to bring it down from Courtenay – the other two are in Eastern Canada somewhere – Montreal I believe?
We were able to use an employee discount plan through McKesson to get a great deal on the truck. We also discovered that I still qualify for the Recent Graduate Program from Ford, as I graduated from my SFU degree in June 2003. And this is the meat of this post – not to gloat about our “New Shiny” as it were.
Continue reading Welcome to Hybridsville – Population: The Bridgers
Another enterprising individual has made a million dollars via the Internet. I think all the good idea were taken though – this one is just exploiting advertisers’ willingness to spend money without any proof that their “investment” actually makes them any money. Seriously; they take the shotgun approach without ever actually bothering to prove that their now-missing money actually resulted in income of some kind.
But I digress.
This fellow wanted to pay his way though higher education, and decided to simply sell the space on a webpage. A simple idea that paid off. He sold every pixel on his page – which you can still see for historical reasons (and monetary – he promised his investors they would have a page up for 5 years at least). He made his million dollars though I think he was surprised that he did in the end.
Check out his blog for a little history and his plans for the future. Do you think we’ll ever hear from him again? I didn’t actually hear about this while it was happening, so his media penetration wasn’t quite maximized. Don’t tell his investors that though. Of course just because I didn’t hear about it doesn’t mean that it wasn’t wildly successful. I’m not that egocentric. But then again here I am blogging about myself again rather than about this fellow. Gee, maybe I do have a problem!
Sorry for the recent downtime. If you hadn’t noticed it, please pretend you didn’t read this post.
Sunday morning we had a power outage that took the wind out of the server’s sails. I’ve replaced a part and things look stable again. Resume your media consumption immediately!
Just a quick note to everyone that Darcy Kohls and Jaime Cheah are now, officially husband and wife. They married on October 8 on a beautiful day in Boston.
Congratulations you two, I wish you both much love, laughter and happiness.
Jared Spool started his keynote speech today at the UI11 conference with a 2 minute animation by Alan Becker. Very entertaining. Here’s a link to the video in Flash. It’s called Animator vs. Animation. I wonder who will win….
On an unrelated note I’ve now bought 4 books during the conference …. my suitcase might just have to grow a little bit more to make sure everything gets home.
Many of us have heard of Wikipedia. Even more of us have heard and used Google Map’s functionality. Sure, sure, they’re both really cool. But what would happen if we left them alone in a closet together for a few minutes after playing spin-the-bottle? Would we end up seeing something like WikiMapia?
WikiMapia is quite similar to Google Maps, but it allows anyone to contribute, like Wikipedia. I personally added Earl Marriott and Peace Arch schools in the little town of White rock.
Another interesting application of AJAX, social networking and raw satellite data. Man I love collaboration! Check out the local White Rock attractions and add your own references. They’re vetted before being published. Or go to some other large city you’re interested in and see what other people know about the city.
This post is in honour of the Georgia Straight’s annual Best of Vancouver issue. A great idea that can now be tried globally using WikiMapia.
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and I’ve joined the sites that are going Pink for October.
A great introduction to what breast cancer is and the danger it poses to both men and women is, as always, available on Wikipedia.