Susan Boyle’s new CD I Dreamed a Dream sold 400,000 copies in one week, making it one of fastest selling albums of 2009. On Amazon Boyle is # 1 in sales, knocking John Mayer’s Battle Studies to # 16. She is touring the US to promote her release.
By DAVID CARR New York Times
Historically, young women and men who sought to thrive in publishing made their way to Manhattan. Once there, they were told, they would work in marginal jobs for indifferent bosses doing mundane tasks and then one day, if they did all of that without whimper or complaint, they would magically be granted access to a gilded community, the large heaving engine of books, magazines and newspapers.
Somewhere … cabals of bright young things are watching all the disruption with more than an academic interest. Their tiny netbooks and iPhones, which serve as portals to the cloud, contain more informational firepower than entire newsrooms possessed just two decades ago. And they are ginning content from their audiences in the form of social media or finding ways of making ambient information more useful. They are jaded in the way youth requires, but have the confidence that is a gift of their age as well. Read the whole story on the New York Times
Serene on the beach in Barbados this weekend photo: Serena Williams Twitter
With story from Times Online and New York Times
The word is Serena Williams will not be suspended for her angry outburst in September at the US Open but will receive a fine today from the tennis powers-that-be.
The word from the New York Time is Williams gets a fine of $82,500 plus a two year probation.
“Grand Slam administrator Bill Babcock tells The Associated Press that Serena Williams has been fined a record $82,500 for her tirade at this year’s U.S. Open and could be suspended from that tournament if she has another “major offense” in the next two years.
Williams faces a “probationary period” at Grand Slam tournaments in 2010 and 2011, Babcock said Monday.” New York Times
The official in the match, in which Williams was already behind, gave her a fault for stepping on the line. Williams let off an angry string of f-words that would curl hair.
Christmas lights will have to wait photo: aaron delay
Disabilities present the human spirit with a frustrating paradox. It’s our natural inclination to strive for achievement yet the limits of disability are real and ever present.
The paralyzed accident victim in Holland who lay inert for 26 years is the most extreme example I can think of. He could hear people talking yet he couldn’t move a muscle or communicate. ‘I screamed, but there was nothing to hear’: Man trapped in 23-year ‘coma’ reveals horror of being unable to tell doctors he was conscious Mail Online
Post polio syndrome is a frustrating disability. People rarely get polio today. Before vaccines eradicated the threat by 1960, it was every parents fear that their child would catch the crippling disease.
By FotoFransen on Flickr
by Stephen Pate
We chased a cricket
Across the kitchen floor
Hannah caught it
Let it out the door
Off the step
And onto a stone
She took a picture
Poof it was gone
Web Sheriff showed up on NJN this week, all nice and pleasant telling everyone where they could find “legit” versions of the Santa video.Oooh very scary boys and girls. They were the one’s – or so I’m led to believe – that yanked down our YouTube account when after 100,000 views of [i]Beyond Here Lies Nothing [/i]
Well pardon me for getting 100,000 people to think Dylan might be a relevant modern artist. I’ll keep that to myself next time.
They do this by hand – just Google searching for miscreants who post songs or videos – and then send out warnings and take down orders.
It’s rather ironic and pathetic all at once.
Programs for people with developmental disabilities in BC are cutting off direction from the people affected. Input from people with developmental disabilities is pushed aside.
Although the disabled don’t want programs without their input, governments find it convenient to exclude those living with disabilities.
The same process occurred on PEI when the new Liberal government set up the PEI Disabilities Review Committee in 2007. All but one of the committee members was not a person with a disability. The reports represented views of bureaucrats not the disabled.
The flu scare continues unabated while the swine flu itself is statistically insignificant.
Last week 1,000 around the world died of swine flu. Jump in number of global swine flu deaths
That would be about the same number of people who died of flu in the United States. The US represents less than 5% of world population.
PEI Newcomers email captcha - gotcha - click for larger image
First off, let’s admit it’s a wonderful sunny day on PEI. Yesterday was so warm at 3 PM, I had to dig out last summer’s shorts and put them on. Today is a little colder but so nice out of the wind. Spring or summer is here.
I was downtown wheeling around in my wheelchair on errands. Surprisingly two offices I visited – IRAC and PEI Newcomers – don’t have automatic doors.
They should have their entrance doors with a button to make them accessible for the disabled. I wrote Moe Rogerson (IRAC) and Kevin Arsenault (PEI Newcomers) and asked them about it.
PEI Newcomers don’t trust the Internet. They have a web form to send them messages.
However, the web form has a captcha invented in a Frank Kafka nightmare. It is only three letters long. No matter what you enter it comes back “Validation string is not correct.”
Click on the image to see what happens. I tried it 5 or 6 times and got bored.
Maybe they get tired of whining Chinese immigrants who want help or their deposits back. Just put a little eternal loop in the email form and ipso presto – no annoying immigrant emails.
I asked Kevin about that too.
Update – November 27th, 2009 – Kevin told me to take him off my email contacts after I asked about the accessible door and now he is retiring to move on to greener pastures.
The landing of the space shuttle Atlantis was pretty exciting today. NASA has upgraded NASA TV and we now get GPS tracking, computer flight tracking, and heads-up video from the cockpit.
We get shots showing the roll and turn, side shots, below, from the pilot’s view.
Beats those old “touchdown” shots that end up on the evening news.
Awesome.
Bear with me – this is my first original post on the NJN Video website. Some of the titles and peripherals are not right yet but Houston we have video.
