Breathing Earth

Thought Provoking

Breathing Earth is a wonderful site showing the earth as births, deaths and emissions of CO2 keep increasing.
If you hover your mouse over a particular country, you get the stats on how often someone dies or is born in that country. For Sweden, the rate of births and deaths is exactly the same, 5.6 minutes.
Ireland roughly has two births to every one. That’s not counting how many immigrants come into the country every day.

Xdrive is back – No thanks

Tech

So I see from CNet News that Xdrive, the online storage company is back and offering 5Gb for free. My advice is to steer well clear of this baby. I had a free account during Xdrive’s first incarnation in 2001 thinking it could be cool to store many of the documents that I need before the era of large usb keys. I went on a round the world trip in early 2002 and in the middle of the trip, I got an email from Xdrive notifying me that they were closing down their service and gave me a short period to retrieve my files. Of course, that wasn’t possible when I was in the middle of my trip so my online files disappeared and I felt quite bitter about it afterwards because I lost access to some important documents. The bottom line is that I now use either my trusty usb stick or my yahoo briefcase account to store anything important where I need to remotely access them.

Marketing Responsibility

Thought Provoking

From Seth’s Blog comes a very interesing piece about being responsible for the products that you market (if you are involved in marketing).

The morality of marketing is this: you need to be able to stand up and acknowledge that you’re doing what you’re doing. “By marketing this product in this beautiful packaging, I’m causing a landfill to get filled a lot faster, but that’s okay with me.” Marketers can’t say, “Hey, the market spoke. It’s not my decision.”

The bottom line:

The same way the marketer at Malboro needs to acknowledge that by being a good marketer, she’s putting her kids through college at the same time she’s killing thousands of people. It’s a choice–her choice.

We’re responsible for what we sell and how we sell it. We’re responsible for the effects (and the side effects) of our actions.

It is our decision. Whatever the decision is, you need to own it. If you can’t look that decision in the mirror, market something else.

Step Away from the Computer

Uncategorized

From Okdork:

Get back out into the world and do something. Go outside (not to a wireless hotspot), be social (but don’t hurt yourself trying), talk to your friends (without saying lol), spend time with your family (without mentioning Ebay, Amazon or Google), eat something that can’t possibly be eaten cold the morning after

Are you boring?

Thought Provoking

Feeling a little lonely? Disconnected from the world? Try being more charismatic. The central point of this nice article on Paul’s Tips is that making others feel special is what will make you charismatic.

Make people feel special
Deep down inside, we all believe we’re more special than those around us. That’s part of the appeal of stories like Harry Potter – the idea that we might have been born extraordinary has deep hold on our psyche. You can use this need to convince people to like you better. Show them you think they’re special. Compliment their talents, achievements and characteristics. Let them see that you’re proud to be associated with them.

New cameras

Photography

So it seems that Canon has announced some new cameras today including replacements for the A range. Currently, I am shooting with an S70 but the specs announced for the new A630 and A640 may make me upgrade to those beauties. The main problem I have found with the A series is that grip that sticks out on the left side of the camera. I like to keep my S70 in my pocket for all of the imprompu photo opportunities and the grip makes the bulge in my trousers (yeah yeah) stick out a little bit too much. But the features….