Across Weirdish Wild Space

From JK Rowling of Harry Potter fame, speaking at this year’s Harvard commencement speech about working at Amnesty International :

One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books. This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working in the research department at Amnesty International’s headquarters in London.

There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends. I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes.

Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their homes, or fled into exile, because they had the temerity to think independently of their government. Visitors to our office included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what had happened to those they had been forced to leave behind.

I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him. He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child. I was given the job of escorting him to the Underground Station afterwards, and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with exquisite courtesy, and wished me future happiness.

And as long as I live I shall remember walking along an empty corridor and suddenly hearing, from behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since. The door opened, and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting with her. She had just given him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country’s regime, his mother had been seized and executed.

Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone.

Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard and read.

And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.

Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have. The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet. My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life.

It’s an excellent address in total to be honest, dwelling on the value of failure and imagination and well worth the time to read or watch.

J.K. Rowling Speaks at Harvard Commencement from Harvard Magazine on Vimeo.

I’m pondering whether I could pull off National Novel Writing Month this year and pen a novel in the month of November as the nights get longer and the days colder.

50k words by the end of the month ? That does seem a little daunting. Say 2000 words a day over 25 days ?

Ok, maybe it wouldn’t be a good novel, but…

Any great suggestions anyone ?...

One of the things I actually do always admire about the US around election time, is the incredible number of people and creativity willing to work on getting people out to vote. Considering the Canadian election that sadly has Harper and the Conservatives back in a minority, had historically low turnout, I do think when I get back that I need to work on something like this.

And you have to respect moveon.org. Consistently, these guys are just amazing with their ability to leverage web actions to get fundraising and mobilize support.

This viral replaces a simple first and last name of someone you send it to in the actual text shown in various places in the flash video making it seem like McCain won by one vote because of their not voting.

Absolutely brilliant. Can’t believe this would be too hard to do either.

I was surprised to see this posted on the 37Signals blog today as I was combing through my feeds. I used to live on English Beach in Vancouver and this guy would be balancing rocks as you see in the video all the time. It is truly astonishing to see, and more so late at night when there is no one around and the tide has come in and there are all these isolated anthropomorphic figures separated on little rock islands by the tide. I don’t think the video does it justice, but considering this was literally right outside my door when I lived on Beach Ave, figured it needed a post.

Plus, really getting tired of England the past week and missing Vancouver and Canada and living next to the sea and friends far away (and really tired of absurd internal politics at work). Nice reminder of how beautiful the city is. Do kind of imagine I’ll be living back there someday…

OK, one final picture from my flickr just to rub it in…

(via Signal vs. Noise.)

Meant to post this a while back from an email that went round at work.

Love the idea. Simply… Offer to bring in a whack of business for one day to one business if they’ll pay for environmental improvements to their business with the proceeds.

Seems like the first run went well (and you have to love the Lil Wayne video spoof). Have to see whether it’s sustainable, but it is an interesting idea in crowdsourcing.

Carrotmob Makes It Rain from carrotmob on Vimeo.

(thanks to Anu K. for the link)

The Human Rights Action Center in NYC just put up a fantastic animation illustrating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the observation of which being one of the cornerstones of what Amnesty works towards, for the 60th anniversary of the document on the 10th of December this year.

Utterly fantastic job in tone, animation, simplicity and even the music.

The action centre has also given over their home page to it in a full browser high fidelity version which looks amazing. Probably won’t be up forever, but looks great if you go there now.

via Cool Hunting

Money As Debt is a fantastic 45 min or so animated feature on the fundamental changed nature of money, loans and the banking system that disabuses people of the notion that money and especially loans are still tired to underlying value (like, say for instance gold).

The first half on the actual idea of money is debt gives a real insight into how we’re in the middle of our current financial crisis, though the second half goes off into some interesting talk of more sustainable money systems and then sadly goes somewhat into the realm of the weird talking about conspiracy theories and pins things on the idea of a cabal rather than a systemic problem and breakdown.

Basically, though it underlines the idea that banks can create as much money as people can borrow and the entire system of money creation and legal tender is based on the promise of the borrower to pay.

If too many people are unable to pay their promises, the fundamental debt repayment that all this money was created upon and the only real value to money that banks have multiplicatively lent out is cut from under them, which is why the crisis is so scary.

When I was a kid, before i got into power gaming and being a master geek, I used to read the “Choose Your Own Adventure” stories which were the forerunners of so many computer games and text adventures that were to follow. Ah yes, the path to being a high school social outcast…

And just in time for Halloween, someone has put together The Outbreak, a little video interactive adventure that is a hell of a nod of the head and petite homage to Romero’s ‘78 classic Dawn of the Dead.

Really interesting use of flash video as well. Like the opening screen before the movie loads especially.

Much as Google’s mission to organize all the world’s information gets scarier and scarier, it is without question an interesting beast. It’s “Don’t Be Evil” motto is actually extending well beyond merely being passive to actively trying to do good.

And you have to be impressed with their latest initiative to spend $10M USD on ideas to change the world and fund them. They’ve also got a deceptively simple site for submitting ideas and then getting everyone to vote on which are the best ones. Oh, and very importantly, a nice music video :

I particularly like the criteria they’ve used to define ideas and how they are measuring their merit :

Guidelines

Our goal is to set as few rules as possible. However, we ask that you put your idea into one of the following categories and consider the evaluation criteria below.

Categories:

• Community: How can we help connect people, build communities and protect unique cultures?
• Opportunity: How can we help people better provide for themselves and their families?
• Energy: How can we help move the world toward safe, clean, inexpensive energy?
• Environment: How can we help promote a cleaner and more sustainable global ecosystem?
• Health: How can we help individuals lead longer, healthier lives?
• Education: How can we help more people get more access to better education?
• Shelter: How can we help ensure that everyone has a safe place to live?
• Everything else: Sometimes the best ideas don’t fit into any category at all.

Criteria:

* Reach: How many people would this idea affect?
* Depth: How deeply are people impacted? How urgent is the need?
* Attainability: Can this idea be implemented within a year or two?
* Efficiency: How simple and cost-effective is your idea?
* Longevity: How long will the idea’s impact last?

I always remember when I was a kid naively thinking Christmas should be this day, but September 21st, the day before the autumnal equinox would work for me as well. Any day we could get people to commit to there being a day of peace, even ceasefires, as long as it was a global gesture would be amazing.

It’s a very nice idea. Peace on earth, everyone…

Just a shoutout to my favourite Rails ninjae here in London, the bambinos at New Bamboo(disclaimer: they’re working on projects with both AI UK and with us at the Secretariat right now), who just launched AI UK’s new Protect the Human site after partnering up with Made by Many.

Very nicely executed social networking site based on activism, sharing and discussion. Just wondering what they used to get the base done. Inososhi ? LovdByLess ? They even managed to incorporate the new visual Global Identity and reconcile it with AI UK’s current visual scheme.

“The human race has only one really effective weapon and that is laughter.”
Mark Twain

In a stone-cold coolness coup of epic proportions the Guardian got Medium Lobster from the amazing Fafblog writing one of their political columns this past Thursday . I hope it’s becomes a very, very regular thing…

Favourite quote from the article. (Nearly dmade me spit out my coffee…) :

Mitt Romney

Pros: History of rapid flip-flops will neatly counterbalance McCain’s record of stunning policy reversals to achieve perfect pandering equilibrium; ability to suck opponents into the inky void of his soul should prove useful in veep debate; sweats liquid money.

Cons: Eccentric space-god religion could appear unacceptably bizarre to pious nation of devout 2000-year-old Jewish zombie worshipers.

(nb: if you’re not following the US presidential race and its dramatis personae closely, this probably won’t be that funny… Oh, and before anyone gets the wrong idea… I’m Canadian, not American… For differences, see here. =] )

The Year of the Political Blogger Has Arrived

In more serious news… The New York Times, which missed Loobster doing the Guardian gig, has a fab article on the rise of the political blogger. Excellent reading and definitely pro-am political journalism is becoming a trend to be noted for any activist organization (offer void in countries where written political dissidence is prohibited).

(via Fafblog, BoingBoing, the NYTimes and dem random Canadian beer commercials, eh ? ).

Well, had a bit of a hard slog the last little while, so just reminding myself of a few important things. Great advice and a fantastic speech from The Steve.

Sometimes life is going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life. And the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. And don’t settle.

[OK, I did this last weekend actually, but only just got round to doing a little writeup on it.]

You do have to hand it to the Brit Museum.

Besides being one of the world’s premiere museums (I still prefer the Louvre), holding the Hadrian exhibit inside the Pantheon-inspired Museum Reading Room while speaking about Hadrian’s contributions to architecture is a self-referential masterstroke. While considering how he rebuilt Agrippa’s building and a still staple reminder of Rome’s ancient glories inside a room where you can look up and see how that Dome influenced the modern world gives a certain relevance to Hadrian’s contributions that a dry recounting of his life in other surrounds would never convey.

It does set the scene, much like the dramatic trailer video that starts off the exhibit does (and having Patrick Stewart do the voiceover is yet another brilliant coup) . Which basically reminds me of those line from the Princess Bride,

“Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Poison. True love. Hate. Revenge. Giants. Hunters. Bad men. Good men. Beautifulest ladies. Snakes. Spiders. Beasts of all natures and descriptions. Pain. Death. Brave men. Coward men. Strongest men. Chases. Escapes. Lies. Truths. Passion. Miracles.”

Well, you get the idea, though it is very well produced. Like a trailer for a television documentary on the Beeb. And it does its job well in letting you know that this exhibit is going to be about the stories around Hadrian’s life, rather than the dry artifacts. Which immediately makes it a lot more interesting than the dry retelling of the facts despite the scandalous £12 entry price (since I’m a member, I got my friend and I in free though ;-) )

The incredible thing is how little is actually known of Hadrian except from a few scant sources, and how this exhibit was largely possible through recent discoveries in places like Sargalassos in Turkey. It goes over his achievements as architect, statesman (I love the cancelling of all public debts owed to the Republic to the amount of 900 million sestertii which provided an immense economic impetus to a moribund empire – How much would that be in today’s money ?), and military leader as well as the way he became emperor, and his marriage with a beautiful woman even while he had a male lover (only the British would dedicate an entire room of the exhibit to this, regardless of how the Antinous cult carried on after his death and somewhat competed with Christianity. We get it already. Hadrian was gay. Move on, please. Just about everybody was then, thanks.).

All in all, a pretty impressive exhibit, which gives you the storied impression Hadrian behaved differently, looked differently and acted differently, and came to power differently than any other emperor before or after him and provides a great base for wanting to learn more about the emperors and understanding the legacy of ancient Rome (and Hadrian !). Definitely worth the visit though I think the price is a little high, particularly considering BP is sponsoring this thing rather heavily.

One thing I really have to start wishing though of British museums in general. If you’re not going to allow people to take pictures in the exihibit—or at least openly disocourage it even if it’s practically impossible in this age of camera phones, and particularly of unique little bits of wall display you might have created which might represent maps of ancient cities, overlay of empires or other material which is going to help people expand their understanding of what you’re representing, please put this stuff online and get a greater understanding of your audience. I still can’t believe I had to snag a pirated video of the trailer off YouTube when the British Museum should have it up there already.

From former Riptowner colleague, Corey; post on the third approach to attracting the best talent you possibly can.

He’s got a point. It certainly is the number one thing that’s driven me to work at the places I’ve worked at. Those I’ve enjoyed the most, sweated the most for, and contributed the greatest to… well, that and the money… ;-)

Oh, and I should mention, Core tells me they’re hiring, and well, if he’s working there, you do get to deal with atomic monster wrangler number one, which is kinda cool (not to mention, their obvious lack of criminal record background checks… ;-) ).

Need a feel for the place before you send your CV screaming over the wall at them ? They even shot a little video with Stand Out Jobs to pimp for staff. Nice idea… I am so stealing it…

Absolutely cool, Tarentino-esque short about… Tarantino. Even in Brazilian, totally reads like one of his scripts. An excellent little homage to the master… Tarantino’s Mind.

(found via Daring Fireball.)

I haven’t really been watching the American political race very closely so I can’t really comment on the relative merits of the current Democratic and Republican leaders going into the race. I’m sure anyone who knows me can figure out which way I’d be leaning. Either candidate, whatever the case, would be a massive improvement as far as I’m concerned over the current administration.

Nevertheless, this speech, regardless of the echoes of JFK’s and whatever you think of Obama personally, is a phenomenal piece of speech craft and an incredible piece of oratory. Let’s hope that it’s promises about a vow for unity and a global pact for working to solve our shared problems for a better world gets delivered on.

Bit long, and even though he brings up some unpopular issues on the American agenda in the middle, it still is a pretty amazing speech and definitely worth the time you’ll take to watch it.

Oh yes, it really, really feels like this sometimes…

Sean Travis is a geek. Pure and simple. And has decided to run for office. He has clearly identified a group he believes can help him take down the current Kansas State Legislature representative (described by others as “an anti-abortion, anti-evolution, pro-censorship, pro-surveillance, anti-gay incumbent.”), other geeks.

He’s calling on them, precisely 3000 of them, via an xkcd style comic style page to donate precisely $8.34 each and help him with name recognition advertising as he has identified this as the key to winning (xkcd is a very geeky, minimalist comic famous for using stick figures for its graphics, yet being very clever, funny and a pillar of high geek culture, you can see it here : http://xkcd.org ).

He’s currently polling within 3 percentage points of his opponent. And he’s got 2,894 donors as of this morning (which is a record for donations to a Kansas rep)

In terms of a clearly identified group, goal, and change he wishes to happen (as well as a focused communication that appeals to his target influence group), it’s a great example of strategic campaigning well executed (so far).

UPDATE [19 jul 2008] : Sean blew away the 3000 mark in just over 36 hours and is now coasting close to 5000… and has added onto his comic. Very impressive.

On my recent visit back to Paris, it was hard to miss the Vélib’s now everywhere in the city (in fact, there is a rank of them right outside my old apartment in the 10éme).

Without question, they’re popular. The NYTimes (via WorldChanging) served up some extremely encouraging statistics on them just recently.

• Riders took 27.5 million trips in the first year.
• The current pace is about 120,000 trips per day.
• The program includes 20,600 bikes.
• The 1,450 self-service rental stations are available every 300 metres.
• The bikes are heavy and expensive — $3,460 and 50 lbs — built to withstand theft, mistreatment, and heavy riding.
• Still, 3,000 bikes have gone missing (or been misplaced), about 15% of the total.

First off, you have to be impressed with anything that makes Parisians exercise. While it’s definitely a walking city (and you do notice how much thinner and seemingly active people are than London), it’s a feat to say the least.

The real benefit though, besides a healthier, more mobile populace, is the reduction in carbon emissions. WorldChanging estimated (using a simple model) that this probably removes about 40,000 metric tons of CO₂ a year. Roughly the same amount as removing 5700 cars from the road a year. While WC sees these as modest, especially in consideration of the costs involved in the Vélib program, I think that’s more than a little unfair considering its popularity, non-controversial nature and the fact it’s a complete win-win solution all round.

Overall, the only thing I think you can really comment on is that it’s not enough even if it’s a great start (the other problem is that this model assumes people are taking cars instead of the metro or merely walking so it’s got a lot of assumptions in it).

Still, the bikes are awesome and the model is gaining traction. New York is eying the same idea and I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before other cities think about the same thing. Even more so, I think these are “gateway drug” programs that can start people also becoming more active about demanding these types of changes for the better. Less car-centric cities, more public transport and greener cities in general.

Now if they could only do this with rollerblades…

(via WorldChanging.)

Ah, if only it were socially acceptable for an adult of my age without children to watch Sesame Street more often. This is great. So subversive.

Contrast with the actual video !

I can’t tell you how much I love this thing for how beautiful it is for its simplicity, brilliance and sheer joy. It seriously makes me happy.

nb: It’s even better to watch this in hi def actually (anyone know how to do this for an embedded video automatically ?). So, think about going direct to the YouTube link and playing it (hit the “watch in high definition” under the “Links” under the video)

Wow, the small team that did this did an utterly amazing job putting together this 10 minute short with Blender.

Well, couple of bumps getting it out the front door, as well as having to deal with a killer 6 am launch time to coordinate the global media strategy, but the mighty mighty AI web team managed to get the annual report out into the wild and into everyone’s browsers in the wee hours of the morning and well in time for the first of or media blitz interviews with CNN. People still face torture in 81 countries around the world, unfair trials in 54 and cannot speak freely in 77 countries.

Massive props to the early morning hours crew that did the final push to get it out as well as all the people throughout the Secretariat and DUs who made it possible. I think it’s difficult for anyone outside the organization to understand what a massive undertaking this is or how many resources are involved in bringing it to fruition.

At some point, I hope someone is going to feed me and let me go home to sleep…

[Update: 7.22 AM BST – We just moved up to the most viewed story on cnn.com and this articlejust made the home page. The Beeb also gave us a high profile mention as well.

Update 2: 2.52 PM BST – We also managed to get mentioned in the NYTimes and the Guardian Online.]

Back in the day when I first got to Uni, the plan was to be an astrophysicist. I literally saw NASA as a viable career choice. Academia wasn’t enough like Star Trek that it could hold me long, but I still get a vicarious thrill from watching space exploration and dreaming of alien worlds to explore one day.

The Phoenix Lander is just getting to Mars today and starting its descent. But the red planet has managed to take out as many probes as have made it to the surface of the planet, so the outcome is far from certain.

So, geek out a little with this footage from NASA of the projected landing.

[Update : You can actually watch the Lander run up live on NASA TV starting @ 6 PM EDT !]

OK, since it took me such a long time to post photos of the trip to Istanbul, I’ve tried to be very good this time and post up my photos as soon as possible.

Besides, was kinda nice looking at them. Makes a big difference having the laptop along with you for a change, though I think next time I’m opting for something lighter (that MacBook Air idea is looking very good right now after lugging the heavier macbook around to be honest).

Turkey is absolutely spectacular though. Currently have it in my head to go back for a month of language training in September or October once all the tourist hordes have cleared out and visit a few of the things I didn’t get to see as well as visiting while I’m doing language lessons (thinking Antalya for the lessons). Guess we’ll see.

... I sometimes wish I were, I’d find a nice female friend, cash it all in, and come down someplace like here in Çiriali and run a little pension on the beach. I’d make homemade marmalade from the oranges on the trees, lemon tarts from the lemons, ginger beer and my own wine for the guests and make it an eco-friendly chilled place buying local produce and having a chef make guests tummies and souls happy. Enjoy a slower pace of life and when not working, write like hell (when not totally distracted by the blue of the sea and the surrounding mountains).

I wonder whether it would be possible to run things and still be part of the world from the internet while running something here ? Could you even do something in the real world, being this far removed from it ? I’m amazed so far at how easy it’s been to have access everywhere. Do things really need to be as hyperlocal as people seem to think ? If not, why are the big cities seemingly becoming even more important than ever. Whatever happened to the promise of work from anywhere ?

I figure there is only so long you can work for an organization trying to reverse a lot of the horrors in the world and not have it get to you, no matter how positive your outlook. Every day is like adding another pebble to your pocket to carry, which seems inconsequential at first but grows to be immobilizing as you carry the combined weight of days.

Being out on the road has been so good for me. I forgot how much I missed just tramping around with a backpack and exploring places never been. I mean, would have been nice with an aforementioned female friend, but maybe the time alone is good for me.

It focuses. It distills. It clarifies. Things, thoughts and plans.

My legs are a still little sore from hiking up and down mountains and over ruins despite the amazing sleep I’ve had. I’ve had really bad insomnia for weeks on end, and it’s only been here so far that I feel like I’ve begun to reverse a couple of month’s worth of sleep deficit. And I can feel my body getting leaner and stronger (and quite tanned actually when I’m not burning) as I’m more active and less sedentary, as well as the weight lifting off my shoulders from the stress.

Anyway… just the little tangent for the day. Maybe just because I’m leaving today to head down towards Kas but m really feeling like I could just chill out here (despite the turn in weather last night) and get back to feeling like myself again.

It’s only through wandering that any of us ever get a solid sense of where we want to go.
- Scott McCloud, Making Comics

OK, one of the things I got to tick off my todo list this weekend with all the extra time I had from cancelled trips was to focus a bit on personal things that have been piling up for ages. Describing, tagging and uploading the photos I took of Istanbul last summer has been sitting there a while.

Istanbul is an absolutely spectacular city, having had empires wash over it and leave their architectural and cultural high water marks all over its seven hills. I spent two weeks there and still hadn’t scratched the surface of everything there was to see and do and that the city had to offer and would go back in a heartbeat (in fact, I’m upset my next business trip won’t have me there for a little while since I’ll actually be in Turkey).

Besides its beauty, it’s filled with friendly people, cultural riches, things to explore, adventures to be had and great food (and it’s cheap and super easy to get around to boot). If it’s not in your top five of places to go if you’ve never been, you need to move it up the list. Immediately.

Warning : I went a little snap-happy in Istanbul… and tended to take a lot of photos of architecture which completely blew me away – hey I’m from a country of little prominent architecture and igloos. Give me a break, ok ? ;-)

I’m inbound to Southern Turkey in a few weeks (just across from Cypress actually !) for a three day business trip and have decided to take some extra time to roam the Western Med and work my way up the Southern Aegean.

Those of you familiar with my absurd goals list and interest in archaeology and ancient history have probably recognized that three of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (the Colossus, the Maussoleum, the Temple of Artemis) are/were all located within easy loping distance of my landing point, so you can probably guess what at least part of the trip is bounded by (as well as me needing to finally finish Herodotus’ Histories before I go.).

The plan is to work my way West down the Mediterranean coast from the Chimera/Olympos through Marmaris, Rhodes, and then up to Bodrum and finally Ephesus before looping back to where I landed. I’ll also possibly be scouting out some cat sailing as well for coming back another time.

Anyhow, I know at least a few of you out there have been on the Turquoise Coast/Turkish Riviera so thought I’d ask for other suggestions of things to do while I’m stomping up and down the country terrorizing the poor, peaceful, prosperous and unsuspecting inhabitants of old Lycia, Caria and Ionia.

Despite the fact that travel is probably more affordable than it has been in the history of the planet, and while hotel rates keep going up, airfares are dropping drastically, time is still a rare commodity when you’ve got a job like mine.

So, I always try to make sure I’m inspired by something every month to keep on making sure I dream a little, plan and plot some trips like I mean to, and just stay in awe of the fact it’s one big globe out there though small when you start moving, and as far as facebook is concerned, I’ve only covered about 11% of it.

Stuck in Customs was only added to my rss feeds at the end of last year, but the guy takes amazing photographs of inspirational and heartrending beauty that makes the bottom of my feet itch to be walking what he’s photographed, every time I check the feed.

And love some of the commentary on his own shots :

The Great Wall sprawls on and on… still the most impressive thing I have ever seen built by man. Four horses can go side by side while walking along the walls. I thought of all the European castles I have built where I would be standing on a wall and thinking, at the time, wow, this is really a big and impressive castle. But then one day you make it to the Great Wall and you think back… wow, I was really kinda out of the loop on this whole magnitude issue.

The rss feed is fantastic as it just serves you up a bit of travel pr0n every day for your tied-to-the-desk-at-the-mo soul, so once you check out the site, throw that into your feeds.

If you prefer, he’s also stunckincustoms on flickr

Just a little propaganda for my peeps…

Amnesty International(disclaimer: who I work for), has just released their 2007 Annual Report which outlines the state of the world’s human rights.

Available in five languages (English, French, Spanish, Russian and Arabic).

Lotta stuff going on in the world that people don’t know enough about, or even worse, are doing nothing about when they do know about it.

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
- from Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

I love Wikipedia. I think it’s as revolutionary as the printing press for access to information and I am not exaggerating when I say I probably look something up using it every day in the course of research, work or personal curiosity.

And even more impressively, rather than folding like a cheap lawn chair with the likes of Google, Yahoo and Microsoft in censoring information and turning over bloggers and dissidents it’s held its ground in refusing to alter articles in the face of the Chinese government restricting access to the site. (As China has learned, you can force those kind of issues when you’re the world economy’s 800 lb gorilla and bully companies over restricting access to markets).

Banned in China since October of last year, Wikipedia has taken the high road and refused to capitulate to Chinese government attempts to censor the information on what they consider to be sensitive articles. Jimmy Wales had some great things to say about freedom and access to information.

We’re really unclear why we would be [banned],’ Wales told The Observer. ‘We have internal rules about neutrality and deleting personal attacks and things like this. We’re far from being a haven for dissidents or a protest site. So our view is that the block is in error and should be removed, but we shall see.’

Wales said censorship was ’ antithetical to the philosophy of Wikipedia. We occupy a position in the culture that I wish Google would take up, which is that we stand for the freedom for information, and for us to compromise I think would send very much the wrong signal: that there’s no one left on the planet who’s willing to say “You know what? We’re not going to give up.”’

Wikipedia’s entry on the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 includes the government’s official claim that 200-300 died and the Chinese student associations and Chinese Red Cross’s estimate of 2,000-3,000 deaths.

(via The Observer via Slashdot)

TED, the Technlogy, Entertainment and Design conference is perhaps the most important conference in the world, IMHO. More than Davos, more than the NY leadership conference, TED brings together the thinkers, mavericks, and doers that, taking a note from the “Think Different” Apple commercials, are really pushing the human race forward.

I’ve been wrangling for an invite or a few years but even the paying the nearly $5k to get in is not enough. You have to be able to contribute. In fact, the schtick is that you must somehow be able to contribute to the wishes of the TED prize winners which are often lofty but possible, humanitarian goals which require design, technology and effort if they are to succeed.

The next best thing to being there though is video though, so I’m really happy this year that TED decided to post video of their conference speakers. (Even slicker, you can also subscribe to the video feed in iTunes. How slick is that for us lazy downloaders ?)

Here’s who I thought made the best and most impacting presentations at TED. Might save yourself going through the ones that, well… really didn’t make much of an impact. These were the ones that impressed me the most and I felt were worth watching :

• Majora Carter
  
  Is the head of Sustainable South Bronx, a MacArthur Fellow (genius grant) and was the first person to bring greenry to the South Bronx is sixty years. Frankly, I think she’s amazing and her presentation impressed the hell out of me.
  
• Larry Brilliant
  
  Is the epidemiologist who headed up the WHO program to eradicate smallpox.
  
• Cameron Sinclair
  
  Didn’t give a great presentation because he rushed it, but he is one of the founders of one of my favourite causes, Architecture for Humanity. This survey of things they’ve done is just fantastic and very imspirational.
  
• Sir Ken Robinson
  
  Besides being hilarious, gave a fantastic talk on creativity and how our entire school system needs to change to accommodate the growing need for knowledge workers rather than industrialized workers and the role that creativity plays in that transformation.
  
• Joshua Prince-Ramus
  
  Gave a talk one of my favourite modern buildings and its design, the Seattle Public Library which really gave some interesting insights into functional design.
  
• Hans Rosling
  
  Gave a super interesting talk over global data and showing how we need to liberate it if we are going to really analyze the impact of long term trends that are going on in the world.
  

Would be interested in what people think. You can see more blurbs for each of the speakers, as well as other speaker videos such as Al Gore, Nicolas Negroponte and others.

I’m sitting here a spoiled brat compared to this woman. I am smack on the doorstep of the world’s largest urban park whereas this woman fought a hard battle of urban renewal to not just bring the first piece of green space adjoining the river to the polluted, overindustrialized and woefully badly urbanly “planned” South Bronx in sixty years (try and think of living someplace with nothing green for 60 years), but has also led an entire “green the ghetto” movement which has revitalized the area proving that not only is green sustainable, it’s also commercially profitable and good for the inhabitants.

She spoke at the TED conference in Monterrey this week and they’ve put her segment online. Her speech, quite frankly, blew me away. I suggest downloading the video in its entirety or you can watch it online here (though I had lag problems).

The woman is amazing, charismatic and solving a genuine, real problem. Most of all, she is one of those rare people that makes us realize that it only takes a few people, maybe even yourself, acting in everyone’s interest to make some big changes that benefits everyone. She’s even a MacArthur Fellow (yes, the ‘genius award’ people) for her contributions.

Gadling has been taking a pretty permanent place in my rss reader these days. I think it’s too nice to say it’s adventure travel porn, but with over three weeks of paid vacation time burning an increasingly large hole in my pocket, gadling plays Satan to my wanderlust.

A friend off to Europe for five weeks (and yes, I am jealous CC !) and I were talking at dinner yesterday evening and I was mentioning how much I missed travelling in Africa.

Besides really badly wanting to go back and travel in Africa, seeing the great wildebeest migration and a safari on the Serengeti is on my “list of things to do before I die” so the absolutely stunning photos from Nick Brandt of the great creatures of the African savannah they pointed me at made my feet just a little too itchy today. Sigh…

Check them out though. They are jaw-dropping.

(via Gadling)

If you haven’t heard of the Flying Spaghetti Monster by now you should have, because it is another one of those interesting flash points in the battle for the United States between crazed or misguided conservatives bent on reversing hard won segregations between church and state and well, the rest of us semi-normal, peace loving folks (Joking aside, it’s a deeply divided country and most of my friends that live there don’t like what’s happening to it either.)

Anyhow, the parody religion formed to protest the Kansas School Board’s decision to teach Intelligent Design (read : creationism with more media spin), is rapidly gaining converts. Wikipedia has a great summary page for those interested in becoming converts. If you’re unaware of what Kansas is up to...

I’m just going to steal whoeheartedly here :

Beliefs

• The Universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster.
  
• All evidence pointing towards evolution was intentionally planted by this being.
  
• Global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct consequence of the decline in numbers of pirates since the 1800s.
  
• Bobby Henderson is the “prophet” of this religion.
  

Codes of conduct

• Prayers are ended with the word Ramen rather than Amen.
  
• Followers are expected to dress in full pirate regalia.
  

Benefits of conversion

Apologists for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism cite the following benefits of conversion:

• Like the noodles they worship, Flying Spaghetti Monsterists have flimsy moral standards.
  
• Every Friday is a religious holiday.
  
• Promise of a stripper factory and a beer volcano in Heaven.
  

(via BoingBoing)

It seems to me that people have vast potential. Most people can do extraordinary things if they have the confidence or take the risks. Yet most people don’t. They sit in front of the telly and treat life as if it goes on forever.

- Philip Adams

Just a few words for a friend who is making some pretty radical (and admirable) changes in her life at the moment and having a little crisis of confidence.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face in marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.From the Citizenship in a Republic speech
delivered at the Sorbonne, 1910
Theodore Roosevelt

[update: 12.13 pm]
And since everyone needs some reassuring and a little push as well…

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.Mark Twain

As I mentioned previously, Michael Palin has my job. And it started with this series. Michael Palin was asked to repeat the 80 day voyage made famous by Phineas Fogg in Jules Verne’s famous Around the World in 80 Days.

I think showing me travelogues (ok, me inflicting them upon myself) must be something akin to an alcoholic in a beer store or a junkie in a pharmacy. It looks innocent enough, but you’re screaming inside and your mind’s wheels are spinning thinking about how you can get the object of your desires again.

The series itself is fabulous. Michael Palin is the consummate traveller for this thing and I can’t imagine anyone other than him (except myself, of course, ahem… being able to pull this off with the charm, panache, good humour, affability and comical observations that makes you deeply long to hit the open road again.

Not only that, but it is real travel. Not some silly shrink wrapped, fly someplace and jog around a to do list. It’s in the steamship, in the train, and walking about some of the most amazing places I’ve never been able to go.

In fact, part of its appeal is the fact that he managed to pick routes that are completely off the paths I’ve travelled. After he left Italy and made it to Egypt, the rest of the trip is uncharted personal territory for me, making it twice as bad. I do hate him.

It is so fun to watch though and more than anything has stirred those evil desires that lay dormant for a little to circumnavigate and see the world. Just need to pick a Passepartout.

You can grab the files off the net via bittorrent. Highly recommended travel porn.

another thing… I’m going to take the opportunity to actually read Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days just because I’ve never really taken the opportunity before and I’ve managed to load it on my iPod