Commercials that make the world better
Liberty Mutual Insurance infomercials feel good to watch. Be kind to one another. Do good deeds. It makes life better.
The music is The Part Where You Let Go by Hem
Kindness is contagious
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Monthly Archives: March 2010
Shanghai drum circle
photo: KK+
From Flickr more photos after the story break Continue reading
We’re becoming App-aholics
Demand for smart phone applications is outstripping software for computers
By Suzy Parker, USA TODAY
Why didn’t someone think of this sooner? Computer applications for an iPhone cost from 99 cents to $900. The $900 is abnormally high since most are under $10. If you buy one and don’t like it, you throw it away.
The smart phone application market is estimated at $3 billion annually. To put it in perspective, Microsoft the world’s largest software company had annual revenues of $58 billion last year.
There is an iPhone application for everything. You can write posts for a blog, take pictures and post them (without cropping), take a video and post to YouTube, update Twitter and Facebook, tune your guitar, watch NASA videos and check email. You can read this blog on an iPhone or other smart phone.
We can check stock prices, play music videos, check the bank, see whats happening in town and download mandolin chords while cruising along the Rive Sud in Quebec.
There are more than 100,000 applications for smart phones with thousands more on the way. Some are fun, some are nothing but propaganda for companies and some are very useful. Most teenagers have hundreds on their phones.
Nortel pensioners get deal to December 31
What do they do after that?
Nortel pensioners will soon find poverty their daily grind. Photograph by: Pat McGrath, The Ottawa Citizen
Nortel’s ex-employees living on disability benefit got a short reprieve yesterday. The on-again-off-again deal to preserve their benefits despite the bankruptcy is back on again.
Nortel disability pensioners will be living at 64% of the poverty line in 2011. The Canadian safety net for those living with disabilities is not adequate.
The court order striking the original deal was apparently all over one little clause that said the $57 million agreement to extend benefits could over-ride changes in the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act.
The deal was originally opposed by Nortel employees with long term disabilities. They still face the reality of joining the majority of Canada’s disabled. They will be poor.
iPad is a drop in bucket
AsusTek and Acer plan iPad competitors for June launch
Apple iPad competition coming in June
Apple is basking in the glow of shipping the new iPad and the excitement is building. They shouldn’t congratulate themselves too much since two of the largest computer makers in the world will soon be competing with them. Keep an eye over their shoulder as netbooks from these Taiwan manufacturers reach 50 million units soon.
Cool Apple iPad arrives in Canada
Apple’s first week shipments of the iPad will be an impressive 240,000 plus units. Selling for $499 to $829, the iPad is expected to be the must-have computer toy this spring.
However, competition in this field will come fast and furious. Acer and AsusTek will ship $400 competitors to be released in early June.
Even if Apple hits 2 million units by Christmas, the pad or tablet computer will pale with the number of netbooks sold mainly by Acer and AsusTek. Netbook sales are expected to reach 50 million by 2012.
My cousin Stephen Pate at the Super Bowl
Don’t come looking to me for tickets
Stephen Pate, operations manager for New Orleans Saints
All the razz-a-ma-tazz and hoopla is over for this year’s Super Bowl. Now that the New Orleans Saints won, I can finally tell you about one of my cousins normally who wouldn’t be in the limelight.
Yes that’s right, my cousin Stephen Pate. Not the golfer, although he is doing well winning in Bogota as the oldest professional golfer to win a tournament at 48.
He’s not the millionaire horse-thief who squires TV star Nicolette Sheridan. (My aunt is going to kill me for the ‘horse-thief’ crack.)
Not the motorcycle mechanic who was with Jay Leno last fall in LA.
Not the Baptist preacher, nor the Houston lawyer nor the one in Tennessee.
He’s not a UNIX programming whiz. He’s only a distant relative of Steve Pate over in China.
He’s not even close to my cousin Jim Pate, one of the few ethical politicians out in Arizona or anywhere. Continue reading
Building a career despite discrimination
Legally blind Labrador man rejected by employers but later plays national leadership role at CNIB
Dean Batstone, legally blind but successful in his career Michelle Stewart photo The Aurora
With story from The Aurora
Dean Batstone may have been born with a visual impairment but it didn’t stop him from getting an education and building a career. People are often amazed at the personal and professional success of people who are blind. The reality is disability does not mean the end of life for 4 million Canadians. It simply means the person has to persevere and adapt.
Batstone was born on the north east coast of Newfoundland in Jackson’s Cove which is a tiny out-port. He had several eye problems including detached retinas. He ended up with 6% vision. Batstone did well in school graduating with his high school diploma. A well-meaning rehabilitation worker decided he was smart enough to go to Memorial University and enrolled Dean without his knowledge.
“A lady with the Department of Rehabilitation decided that I was an intelligent young man and I needed to go to university, so got me into a funding plan to go to university.”
Income Tax Refund is a scam
Revenue Canada does not want to send you a 386 CAD refund
Some get to play and some have to pay illustration: slapupsidethehead.com
This email arrived several times and while enticing – who doesn’t want an income tax refund – it is a scam.
The subject shows the typical fractured English of the scammers –
Reminder: Please Submit Your Refund Payment.
Is it a refund or a payment – duh!
If Canada Revenue has a refund they will send you a cheque or do a direct deposit if you gave them you account. The scam email follows the break.
Continue reading
Apple iPad pre-orders sold out
Apple confirms no retail units until April 12th
Apple's April iPad is Round One in the battle
Customers who pre-ordered Apple’s new iPad will receive them on Saturday April 3rd but there will be no more until April 12th.
Pre-orders are now booking for delivery on the 12th as Apple has sold the first allotment of what appears to be a hot seller.
Pre-ordering the iPad began on March 12th. Estimates of the first block are 240,000 iPads.
“The WiFi iPad starts at $499 with 16GB of flash storage, with prices up to $699 for a 64GB device. Models with both WiFi and 3G range from $629 to $829.” story from ComputerWorld
In other iPad news, Fujitsu has transferred it’s rights to the trademark IPAD to Apple. Fujitsu had marketed another product with that name in 2002.
The check is in the mail for musicians
SoundExchange surprises musicians with royalty checks
Grammy-winning R&B singer Sam Moore and his manager and wife, Joyce, say a lot of legacy artists haven't heard of SoundExchange. "They think the money isn't real," Joyce Moore says. (Brian Blanco / The Times)
Musicians are now getting their royalty checks for satellite and internet radio through SoundExchange although many can’t believe it. Some even ignore the the emails thinking it’s a hoax or scam.
“When John Boydston got an e-mail from SoundExchange saying he had several thousand dollars in unclaimed royalties, he did what most sensible people would do. He ignored it.
To the rock musician from Atlanta, “money for nothing” meant a song by Dire Straits, not a stranger contacting him out of the blue promising to cut him big checks.
But then he got the message again six months later. Curious, he called SoundExchange.
“Sure enough, they had a sizable amount of money for me,” said Boydston, 51, whose band Daddy a Go Go includes his two teenage sons. “It was several thousand dollars. That’s not a ton of money. But for a guy who makes CDs in his basement, it was enough to finance my next album.”‘ LA Times
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Bob Dylan interview in Rolling Stone one of his best
Dylan almost levels with Rolling Stone interviewer
Bob Dylan photo - Micelotta/Getty
From a story in Rolling Stone
There is a symbiotic relationship between Bob Dylan and Rolling Stone Magazine. Was the magazine named after Dylan’s Like a Rolling Stone, the Rolling Stones as in the rock group, or the common blues phrase “a rolling stone.”
Dylan has given Rolling Stone Magazine more time than any other magazine and the latest interview from the May 14th, 2009 issue is one of the best.
Unlike his earlier mind games with journalists, Dylan is forthright at least for Dylan. He talks about his life, touring, music and today’s economy. If you follow Dylan it’s worth reading if not owning. The journalist doesn’t spend his time trying to one-up Dylan which is refreshing.
Here’s an excerpt from the Rolling Stone coverage.
(video after the break)
Continue reading