Category: Worth a Quick Look

Want To Virtually Visit Moscow?

A friendly Moscow webcam is the best I can offer my intrepid friends. That and a return to the saga that was our trip there some years ago.

You can control this webcam directly on the webpage – if you select the preset position called Downtown you can see some on the onion domes and massive architecture in downtime Moscow. You can also click anywhere on the visible picture and it will be centered on that location for you.

Note that anyone with an Internet connection can control this, so don’t be surprised if it suddenly moves somewhere you didn’t ask it to. Pretty darned cool though – brings up good memories of our days in Moscow.

A Better BBQ?

I consider myself a BBQ enthusiast. I enjoy BBQ’d food as much if not more so than any other random person you’d stop on the street. I sometimes take it even further when I go camping – the BBQ morphs into a small portable stove and everything is cooked either in a pot over the flame or literally over the campfire flame. I love that stuff.

So now I hear things about this new technology for BBQs – one that uses wood fuel and batteries. Interested? I was too. Check out the Woodflame technology.

I have no idea how much these cost, but I see Rona is a reseller so you can bet I’m going to check it out when i’m next in there. Pretty cool stuff!

We All Love Robert Munsch!

I grew up loving Robert Munsch’s story about Jonathan and the subway station in his wall. I’m sure we all have favorites. Now I find that the author and entertainer has made audio versions of many of his books available for free on his website. Download them all and play them for your children – you can’t really go wrong. What a great gesture from a great children’s writer.

On a related note, I had no idea he was a Canadian, and that he based the stories he writes on the children he first tells them to. His story telling style is apparent in the audio recordings, and are quite entertaining as Wikipedia states:

Munsch stories are well known for their juvenile, yet catchy, humour. Parents sometimes criticised them as being rude or obscene. Munsch himself is well known for his manic storytelling methods, with exaggerated expressions and well-acted voices; his performances are always loved by kids, of all ages.

Red Paperclip = Living in Kipling, Saskatchewan!

The red paperclip guy has done it! He’s managed to finesse his way through 12 trades all the way to a house. Congratulations on a ‘job’ well done. Now he wants to write a book about the experience – something I figure he’ll have plenty of time to do in his new house.

Shoot – he also gets to be mayor for a day, and receives a key to the city. Who knew negotiating obtuse trades could be so … honorary?

Here’s my previous post on the fellow.

The Manager in Me

I know many of you may have seen some of these demotivational sayings before, but this is a great collection of them all in one place. Some of these hit the spot so perfectly …

These ones made me laugh out loud:
Bitterness
Cluelessness
Conformity
Dare To Slack
Demotivation
Dysfunction
Goals
Laziness
Losing
Meetings
Mistakes
Motivation
Stupidity
Worth

You can click on the horizontal listing of all the words to view them one by one. Click the little >>’s to move to the next group of words.

Enjoy!

Images of Chernobyl

As a young person when this ‘accident’ happened, I only remember how it affected me. I don’t remember the details of the event, how it came to pass, how it affected others, none of that. Part of being young is you get to be selfish and self-centered. I know we’ve all seen memorials this past week as the 20th anniversary of the disaster has come to pass, but I wanted to share one with you that I found profoundly affecting.

A photo journalist has shared a few of the images he took right after the disaster and how it affected some of the local children. The page he has created also allows you to see a timeline of the event, and to possibly understand how the disaster came about. I think people spit on the lead-encased coffins of the people involved for a reason.

Sadly he has used Flash to make the page up, so please don’t take this as me supporting his technological choices. But his voice is an interesting one that exposes the human side of the disaster. It is worth listening to, and most importantly watching.

Less personally-touching was this series of images from the disaster – again using Flash. Certainly interesting to look through.

Internet Bartering – From a Paperclip to a House

An interesting site I came across today where a Canadian man is trying to trade a single red paper clip for a house. Impossible, you say? Well, right now he’s traded up to a year’s residence in Phoenix, so he’s not doing too badly for less than a year of work.

It’s an interesting exercise in bartering, Internet style. Each step he is counting on someone’s willingness to trade something for less than it is worth (to them – this is all relative). This may be because they no longer value the item they’re giving away, or they’re glory hounds. There may be some other reasons too, but I’m not really sure. I’m sure there are smarter people than me who can psycho-analyze this, but I thought it was an interesting read at least.

I still say the offer of a bar in Mexico for a year sounded almost too good to pass up – legalities be damned.

Get Your Documentaries!

Wow, I’ve just stumbled across a great site for anyone interested in checking out some documentaries via the Internet : FreeDocumentaries.org.

In a previous post I mentioned that Michael Moore had no problems with people sharing his movie. Lo and behold, you can download Farenhuit 9/11 in its entirety for free at this site.

His comments on it can be found here. This is a bit of a longer clip than the one I previously posted.

The film can be downloaded (using bittorrent) here.

For more information on bittorrent, visit the creator’s page, or read FreeDocumentaries.org’s instructions.

Now this is what technology is supposed to do – enable communication and information transmission.