It’s so interesting to analyze where my blog visitors are coming from and what they’re looking for. I recently had a look and here is how some people are finding my site:
Kirkpatrick family research (definitely the number one hit-maker!)
I don’t know a lot of people who maintain blogs (although, I think the number may be higher than I am aware of), but some of my friends and passers by may get something out of this. It’s a cute article called Romancing your blog and it’s packed with a lot of great suggestions for how to improve your blog work. Suggestions like: Look At Your Blog As A Long-Term Commitment; Trying To Juggle More Than One Blog Is Dangerous; and, Share What’s Great About Your Blog With The World.
Google’s new Wave, coming soon, has had me intrigued from the first time I saw the video. I plan to be one of the first in line to try it out and just can’t wait for the day.
So I was gratified to read Dion Hinchcliffe’s article on his first experiences with Wave. Although Dion is looking at the product from a business perspective (as an enterprise solution) and I am looking at it from a social perspective (to replace Facebook), he has some valuable insights to share.
Have a read. Bottom line – I’m even more excited than I was before!
I bought myself a Roomba because, a) our vacuum got removed in the renos, b) I hate vacuuming, and c) I hate having a dirty floor and it doesn’t clean itself. Well, Seven is the next best thing.
I named her Seven after Star Trek’s 7 of 9 character because she has to dock to rest and replenish her energy levels. She buzzes around the house and I took some video footage with my other new toy – a little Flip video camera.
I’m really tickled with my first Youtube upload. It’s simple but it’s a start. Enjoy!
Going green doesn’t have to mean using less power or slower economic growth
OTTAWA, May 29 /CNW Telbec/ – Author and democracy activist Frances Moore Lappé says we already know how to solve the pressing issues of our time, such as climate change and world hunger.
But she says our own pre-conceived ideas about how things should work – our mental map of the world – is actually preventing us from taking action.
In a speech at Ottawa’s Carleton University as part of the 78th Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Lappé called for a wholesale revamping of the way we view government, the economy and democracy. If we manage to do it, she says, we can save ourselves from our own demise.
Lappé, made famous in the 1970s by her bestselling vegetarian cookbook Diet for a Small Planet, is an activist, author and co-founder with her daughter Anna Lappé of The Small Planet Institute. She says many people today are frightened by the potential for disaster, ecological and otherwise, and fearful that nothing can be done to prevent it. Lappé says we can do something – if we challenge five assumptions about the way the world works.
The first is that going green means “powering down,” or reducing our consumption of energy. Lappé says all we have to do is stop getting energy from fossil fuels and start getting it from renewable sources like the sun.
“Every day the sun supplies us with 15,000 times the amount of energy we’re now using in fossil fuels,” she says. If everyone had a solar panel or windmill on their roof, we wouldn’t be dependent on oil companies – and as
individuals we’d feel more in control of our own destiny.
The second idea to dispense with, she says, is that going green means an end to economic growth. What we have to do, she says, is change our idea of what growth is. Right now, she says, the Walton family – owners of Wal-Mart -
controls as much wealth as the bottom 40 per cent of the U.S. population. Is it growth if the wealthy families just get wealthier?
There’s plenty of room for growth, she says, if we learn to do things more efficiently. For example, she says various estimates show that between 25 and 50 per cent of all food produced in the United States is wasted. And that every year, Americans throw out some 300 pounds of packaging material.
The third idea she wants to challenge is the notion that humans are by nature greedy, self-centred and materialistic. Under certain conditions, she said, we can be monsters. But there wouldn’t be 6.8 billion of us on the planet today if we didn’t also have positive qualities such as empathy, cooperation and fairness. As a society, she said we should simply try to make sure our rules try to bring out the best, not the worst in us.
The fourth idea she disputes is that we dislike rules. She says humans crave structure, particularly rules that make sense to us as individuals and which foster a sense of inclusion. We will accept the right rules, she says, citing as an example a German law that enables individual citizens to sell power they produce at home, through renewable sources such windmills or solar panels for example, to utilities at a guaranteed price. People there have embraced the idea, she says.
The final concept she wants to challenge is the idea that our problems are so pressing there’s no time for democracy, and only an authoritarian regime can save us. She believes the only hope for the planet is to trust in people and set rules that bring out the best in us.
“The mother of all issues is who makes the decisions,” she says, adding that if decisions are taken by people with the most money, we all suffer.
Lappé says she’s not against a market economy – just the idea that there’s only one way to run the economy.
She also wants to challenge the idea, she says, that change is impossible. Recent history has shown that seemingly insoluble problems have in fact been solved. “It’s not possible to know what’s possible.”
Organized by the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Congress 2009 brings together over 8,000 researchers from Canada and around the world.
Because I tend to travel a fair amount (and like to stay connected when I do), I jumped when I first saw this little beauty. She’s an Acer Aspire and she looks like a laptop but she’s tiny. She fits in my purse and can pick up wi-fi hotspots over a very large range. She has a crystal-clear display AND she only cost me $400! Does it get any better than that?
I haven't named her yet, but she DOES keep me up at night.
I should add that this is not just another pretty face. This girl has a huge amount of disk space and runs XP just like my home computer. The only thing I’m not happy with is that it came with a trial STUDENT edition of Office 2007, but that’s no biggie. I’ve downloaded Open Office and am going to give it a try instead. It’s free and I’ve always wanted to play with it.
So, I am thinking of getting my DNA analyzed for genealogical purposes. And I’m considering going through Family Tree DNA because it is the one that’s been most recommended to me by my genealogy-studying colleagues.
Family Tree DNA will test womens’ mtDNA and/or men’s Y-DNA. The former is what is handed down from mother to daughter and the latter is what men pass down to their sons. Unfortunately, I can only see my maternal heritage unless I get my dad or a male cousin to take the test, as well. But it’s kind of neat what a person CAN find out.
Family Tree DNA has a number of projects they’re working on and if there isn’t one for you, you can start your own. I searched for Kirkpatrick and found a project has, indeed, already started for that. The Kirkpatrick Surname Project has 21 members already! However, the test is for Y-DNA and my father would have to submit to it. I’ll have to check further to see if there are any maternal last names I could search for.
I was talking to someone the other day about Internet relationships and how “safe” they are – or not. I think people were surprised to know that I have had a few such relationships that began online, the last of which has provided me with a dozen or so years of blissful couple-ness.
Relationships that begin online can work, and work well. In fact, when I look back on my past relationships, one in three serious ones that began online turned out successful and long term. On the other hand, zero percent of the loves I met in real life panned out. So there you go. Empirical evidence it ain’t, but I’m convinced.
I learned a few things as I went along and I’d like to pass along six rules for online dating. I’d be interested to hear if anyone has anything to add.
Take it slow. In those first, heady days when you’re finding out what you have in common and writing loooong letters to each other, it is easy to think this is it! But give yourself lots of time.
Read between the lines and trust your hunches. If you’re at all uncomfortable about something that was said (or not said) or done, pay attention. Try to discern what’s being left unsaid “between the lines.” Talk to someone you trust about your thoughts.
The next stage should be telephone conversations – not meeting. You can tell a lot more about a person after hearing them speak, but the first call or two won’t tell you much. You need to learn the patterns and tones of their speech to be able to figure out if they’re being honest or not.
Only after emailing and talking on the phone for a while should you meet. Make it a bright, public place that you go to, preferably bringing along someone you trust. If you can’t or don’t want to bring someone, work out a code with a friend so you can call them if you need help or need to escape.
If all the first steps work out well, congratulations! But before you decide to get serious enough to move in together or get married, be sure to spend LOTS of real-life time together first. That’s where one of my relationships went hopelessly wrong. We didn’t spend enough 3-D time together and it turned out he was not what I thought he was, in spite of my being careful with the first four rules. Besides, you just don’t know if they’re kind to kittens and children or mean to their moms until you hang with them for a few months. Maybe he thinks it’s funny to make rude noises at the dinner table. Maybe she eats like a pig or picks her nose.
Before you get married, do a background check. Call friends and old boy/girlfriends, if possible. Find out if she has a criminal record or if he is up to his eyeballs in debt. Truthfully, this rule is good advice for almost any relationship.
There you have it! Reasonable, yet progressive. Maybe someday you’ll be able to say you have shared a dozen or so years of blissful couple-ness with someone you met online!
I have a new Twitter acquaintance. His name is Wil. He is sooo cute and brilliant and nerdy and – most important to this gal – he is funny and can write. Like a hot damn. In fact, his clever, witty writing style had me hooked from the word go. Why, if he weren’t happily married and I were twenty years younger and not in a happy, committed relationship myself (I love you, Honey!) and not in Canada with him in California I’d be, well – you figure it out… Or at least I’d be setting him up with a nerdy daughter or something.
Anyway, his blog is well worth checking out. It will surprise you in more ways than one!
A friend of mine wrote an interesting blog post about an exciting new technological trend of the future – electricity. Free (or nearly free) electricity, that is. I’ve read and thought about the endless possibilities before, but today I realized that not everyone has awakened to this concept. So let me elaborate.
I believe free energy is going to be what levels the playing field for us all.
Imagine if we had no more electricity or gas bills. Ever. I don’t know what you’re paying, but that’d be an extra $400 per month for me. Four hundred dollars that I could do other, more worthwhile things with. Why, that’s $4800 per year! I could get that laser eye surgery I’ve been thinking about. I could pay off my credit card. I could give more to my favourite charities – you name it.
And for folks in developing countries – imagine. If they could cook a meal without having to breathe toxic fumes from burning cow dung; or could stay up past dark to read or study; or power a water pump or power tools or whatever… Don’t you think THAT would change the future for millions of people in Africa and India and South America? The possibilities are endless.
Most folks haven’t caught on to this yet, but here is one innovative company that is on the cutting edge. I have been watching these guys for a couple of years now (mostly wishing they would HURRY UP and bring their product to market). They have invented a remarkable generator that runs perpetually, using the natural attraction/repulsion of magnets. They’re called Lutec and as soon as they start selling, I plan to be one of their first buyers. I’ll pop one of these babies into our garage, hook it up, and the rest will be history.
Hubby will be relieved when I quit nagging about leaving the lights on…
