Canoe Creek Photos

I have finally finished processing all the photos I shot at Canoe Creek State Park on July 12.



Some I am very proud of, some not so much.

It's Wabbit Season!

I snapped these bunny-eared Easter celebrants enjoying themselves in the local Panera Bread store.

Tweet, Twit, Twitter

I've finally gotten Twitter to the point where it has become a useful tool and not simply a recreational social network. It took a while to find the people I wanted to follow, but I have garnered so much good stuff from those people that the development process has been decidedly worth it.

During that process, I've drawn some conclusions about what constitutes a good member of the Twitter community.

• You should bring something to the party which adds value to the network. Share. If you've found a good web site or interesting video, share a link to it.
• Provide a little description of what you are linking to. Tweets like this, "Take a look at this http://www.####.com" are often going to be ignored.
• If you get something good from a post, don't tweet it as if you found it yourself, retweet (RT) the original post. Give credit where it's due.
  
• Avoid serial tweets. If you need more than two or three tweets to get your message across, use something like TinyPaste to enclose your message in a single post.
• Don't carry on protracted personal conversations as if Twitter were an IM service. There are better, more appropriate tools for this.
• Use direct messages (DM) for personal posts (using d + username + message).
• Thank people for following you. They don't have to you know.
• Please don't be a persistent whiner or complainer. If 2 out of every 3 tweets you post is a complaint, you won't stay on follow lists too long.
• If you post a tweet that solicits responses, acknowledge those responses with a DM.

I know I've broken every one of these rules at least once, but by trying to follow these principles as much as possible, I hope to be good, valued member of my Twitter community.

One final thought, beware of people whose number of followers is far greater than the number they follow.

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What IS the Happiest Place on Earth?

This story from the Today Show this morning spiked my interest.

The University of Michigan Institute for Social Research study cited Denmark, Puerto Rico, and Colombia as the happiest nations in the world with Zimbabwe as the least happy.

I was curious and did some quick investigation. This story from BBC News names Nigeria, Mexico, and Venezuela as the happiest places and Russia as the most morose. Meanwhile, this story from HappyNews.com cites London-based market research company GfK NOP as giving the top spots in the happiness sweepstakes to Australia, the US, and Egypt with the most disconsolate people in Hungary.

So, who really are the happiest people in the world? And anyway, isn't Disneyland "the happiest place on Earth"?

Plurkerrific!

For the last several days I've been checking out a new social micro-blogging site, Plurk.com. Actually, I'm way past "checking it out," I'm nearing "consumed by" status. I had tried Twitter twice in the past and it just didn't work for me. But Plurk has grabbed me by the *****!

The community is still small but vibrant and enthusiastic, and growing. I think that they, like myself, are excited about being in at the start of something with potentially a great future. Plurkers appear to be a more mature, more sophisticated group. As yet, not a lot of kids appear to be plurkers. I have met a lot of really interesting, wonderful plurkers so far and had a blast!

The quirk of Plurk is the horizontal timeline.Newest items appear at the left and by dragging or using the scroll wheel you can go back in time. It has a bit of a learning curve, but as I got more familiar with it, navigation became relatively simple.

I really like the conversational threads that develop from individual posts and appear in a drop-down window. Sometimes these convos go on for hours with various plurkers jumping in and out as they can.

You can also preface your plurk with a choice of verbs and choose from an assortment of emoticons.

There's a system of karma points with certain plateaus that open new features. For example, when you reach 25 karma points, you're emoticon set increases.

You can group friends into cliques and send private plurks among the members of that group.

Pictures on other image hosting services such as Photobucket, Flickr, and Picasa Web can be linked to as can YouTube videos.

Plurk is not feature-rich. There is no search capability as yet. There isn't a way to ignore a conversation or save one, but it's early days yet.

I'm hooked, as are most of my pleeps. They are the best thing about Plurk ☺.

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Digitally Visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Footnote.com has digitized the entire Viet Nam Memorial wall and made it free to view. The image was assembled from 6,301 images photographed by Peter Krogh and stitched by Darren Higgins. It is 400,000 pixels by 12,500 pixels.

The 58,320 names on the wall can be browsed by all, enlistment type, service branch, or hometown. You can chose to learn more about a name such as full name, rank, specialty, and hometown. Images and comments can be added. Military data is based on information supplied from The National Archives.

You will need to zoom the image several times before you can read any names. Because the image is so large it takes a few moments to refresh when you zoom, so be patient.

See it ... Vietnam Veterans Memorial (The Vietnam Wall) : Footnote.com

St Paddy's Day Snow Storm

On my first teaching job at West View JHS in Pittsburgh, I was told by an older lady, a science teacher, that there is always a significant snowfall within a week or so of St Patrick's Day. That was in 1973. I have taken note ever since. It has always happened, though I was beginning to think it might miss this year. But as these images show, she's right again.

Drivers on Cells

You know it's true. People driving while on the cell phone are becoming an even greater problem. You don't need any professional studies to tell you that. All you need do is look around while you're in traffic.

Now, it seems, they're not only jeopardizing my safety, but they're wasting my time, too.

Study: Drivers on Cells Clog Traffic - TIME

StupidFilter - It's About Time!

I've been waiting for something like this ...

scientists are developing the “StupidFilter” – an open-source filter software that will be able to detect “rampant stupidity” of web-content in written English. Similarly to the way spam recognizing software detects suspicious e-mails, the “StupidFilter” will look for pre-fed words or sign combinations that characterize stupidity

Read more at The Future of Things ...

StupidFilter - Time to Fight Back the Imbeciles - TFOT

The dirty-handed '5th guy'

The '5th Guy' is the one adult in five who does not wash his hands after using the restroom. He's also the star of a Florida Department of Health ad campaign.

Here's a heads-up on the dirty-handed '5th guy' - USATODAY.com

Stupid US!

The video speaks for itself ...

More than a quarter of Americans did not read a book last year

According to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll released Tuesday, 27% of Americans did not read even a single book last year.Nearly a third of American men and a quarter of women fall into that classification.

They tend to be older, less educated, lower income, minorities, from rural areas and less religious.

Poll: 1 in 4 read no books last year - MSNBC.com

Just for Laughs

You wanna have some fun? Just for Laughs is just for you. I discovered this show on BBC America some time ago and now it comes to the US on ABC, Tuesday evenings from 8 to 9.

Just for Laughs is a Canadian-produced hidden camera show. It's extremely visual with virtually no spoken dialog. Facial expressions and body language tell the story. The gags are often very clever and revealing of human nature. And as it's Canadian, it isn't always as sanitized and PC as typical American TV.

It can always be counted on it to provide a truckload of smiles and laughs.

See clips from Just for Laughs ...

The Italian Solution

Leave it to Italian research to suggest such a pleasant and elegant solution

Imbibing may slow dementia in seniors - USATODAY.com

Many of the Italians in the study said they drank several glasses of red wine every day... And the good news from other research is this: Moderate drinking — one or even two glasses of wine a day — just might help stave off dementia and other ailments such as clogged arteries and heart disease ...

My Theory of Stupid People

In my many years on this planet I have had an extraordinarily vast opportunity to observe the methods and practices of stupid people. I take this opportunity to share my theory of stupid people developed after years of study.

A genuinely stupid person is so limited in intelligence that he cannot even conceive his own stupidity. It is not possible for him to fathom the possibility that other persons may be more intelligent than he is. He believes he is the best and brightest thing going.

As a consequence of this belief, he thinks any ploy that would fool him would fool anyone. It is inconceivable that someone could see through his plots and deceptions. When his schemes fail, it could only be attributable to back luck, or someone who is out to get him.