Category: Of Interest

Those miscellaneous things that just must be published.

Posted on by — 2 Comments

Ebooks for Halloween

Oh, I’m sorry. You call that Harvest Festival now don’t you. The thought of encouraging your children to partake of a Pagan celebration is a little a scary I suppose. Wait. Isn’t Halloween supposed to be scary?

The holiday was a day of religious festivities in various northern European Pagan traditions, until Pope Gregory III moved the old Christian feast of All Saints Day to November 1 to give Halloween a Christian interpretation. [Source]

Wasn’t another holiday rooted in Pagan tradition?

…winter festivals that are believed by some to have influenced Christmas include the pre-Christian festivals of Yule [1] and Saturnalia, and many of the traditions associated with the holiday have origins in these pagan winter celebrations. [Source]

Regardless, even if you are trying hard to use non-scary costumes and take your children only to the funny haunted houses, this is a time of year for scary stories. Google has made several available as ebooks. Enjoy!

Darkness falls across the land
The midnight hour is close at hand
Creatures crawl in search of blood
To terrorize y’awl’s neighborhood
And whosoever shall be found
Without the soul for getting down
Must stand and face the hounds of hell
And rot inside a corpse’s shell
The foulest stench is in the air
The funk of forty thousand years
And grizzly ghouls from every tomb
Are closing in to seal your doom
And though you fight to stay alive
Your body starts to shiver
For no mere mortal can resist
The evil of the thriller
[audio:http://blog.siliconholler.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/vprice.wav]
[Source]

[Vincent Price] had a choice between taking a percentage of the album sales or $20.000. Price was well along in his career, so he took the $20,000. He was good-natured about it when Carson told him he could have made millions off of the royalties due to the vast number of copies sold even at that time. Price laughed heartily and said: "How well I know!"
[Source]

Posted on by — 1 Comment

Oct 24 is Take Back Your Time Day

TAKE BACK YOUR TIME is a major U.S./Canadian initiative to challenge the epidemic of overwork, over-scheduling and time famine that now threatens our health, our families and relationships, our communities and our environment. [Source]

I have always envisioned building a better work place for my staff. I’ve dreamed of staffing a business and ironing out the kinks such as the wasted time at the water cooler or the hours blown away playing solitaire when the boss isn’t looking. Don’t get me wrong. Downtime is important and I admire companies that require a block of time toward personal improvement along the lines of “this time is to be spent at the office working on your own project.” The concept is that you get your mind off your project enough to refresh, while doing something that interests you, and betters your skillset. This is not time to play Doom. I believe many of the Google Labs projects originated with this method of management.

Google engineers can spend up to 20 percent of their time on a project of their choice. [Source]

Ok. So the projects are for Google and still have to be approved.

I think through commited staff that a company can survive on a 4 day work week. I think there will be times the staff has to work 5, 6 or 7 days and overtime but for the most part, I think we easily waste away 8 hours a week on non-essentials and that if we moved all of that to Friday, the staff wouldn’t even have to come in. Ah! I also think that same company can do most of its work from the employees homes and not require more than a few days a month at the office. Maybe Monday of each week is required at the office with regular video conferencing on other days and some meetings throughout the month scheduled in the office but not necessarily for the whole day.

Naturally, this model will not fit all business models. But one day, I will demonstrate just such a company! Something has to change. Look at the Time Poverty Fact Sheet to understand why.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Child Labor is Ok!

So I pop over to Craig’s List to see if anyone in Knoxville posts jobs that pay rapidly and I find this one:

…That consists of taking the supplied directory and placing it into a supplied bag, double tying said bag shut and stacking the completed directory onto a skid.
You will be working primarily unsupervised in a storage unit/miniature warehouse near the Knoxville Zoo. This is an unheated indoor location; therefore you are advised to dress for the weather, it may be chilly in the mornings. … We pay $20.00 per completed skid.

Each skid holds about 400 books so if it takes you 15 seconds to pickup, bag, double-tie and place a bookdown you are looking at 4 books a minute so roughly an hour and a half or two for $20. Now this is my favorite part:

While you are welcome to bring your kids to help you, at least one person must be of majority age. Additionally, in such an arrangement, your kids work for you and not us, therefore you are responsible for paying them for helping you. We will pay the adult who responds to this ad.

It saddens a little to see this because with the cash flow issues I have endured as an independent contractor, I can see how a family would need to submit to such a job just to put food on the table. It is a shame that this company does not pay on the day of work but instead holds the money for a week and a half. I hope that I never have to tell the kids, "today for fun we are going to stand on our feet for 8 hours and shove telephone books into plastic bags." Life certainly has humbled me enough to understand that the poor are not given much opportunity to rise from their circumstances.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Band Geeks Gone Wild

Apparently band trips are packed with excitement.

  • A female band member told to suck on a sex toy in an apparent hazing incident.
  • Women being forced to kiss other women in order to gain access to bus bathrooms.
  • Women being forced to draw pornographic pictures for older male band members, recite obscene limericks or stories, and read aloud explicit accounts of their sexual preferences composed for them by others for older male band members.
  • The practice of women swapping shirts with males.
  • Demeaning and abusive demands for younger band members to run errands and refill beer cups for older members.
  • Upperclassmen have been reported to have “taken over” the dorm rooms of freshman women, supplied alcohol and demanded they join in the drinking.
  • In 2004, band behavior in a bus led to the driver pulling over and calling for police.
  • forced to shave his head in a hazing incident
  • semi-nude dancing

[Source]

Posted on by — 1 Comment

Have your burger your way!

Remember Kristyk is not blogging right now but this story was amusing enough to pull her away from home repair and back to the computer. The picture is hilarious! "Yeah mon. *giggle* I feel fuuunny. We just ate and I like got the munchies. Want a donut?" "You look gay." "No man. You look gay." "You look kinda cute in that uniform." Whoa! Took that one too far.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Pala Ferry Mentioned in Orientation Tapes

Barry notes that the dock is labeled Pala Ferry not Sala Ferry. Lost Pedia gives us this information regarding Pala Ferry:

The Pala Ferry is a ferry system referred to in the Pearl Orientation Video. Dr. Mark Wickmund states “…At the end of your eight hour shift proceed to the Pala Ferry which will take you back to the barracks…“. There is a pier and dock on the northern shore of The Island that has a covered canopy with the words “Pala Ferry” on the top. Presumably this is the docking point for the ferry and location the Pearl team would travel to when they boarded the ferry. The Pala Ferry pier has been used by the The Others as a docking point for their boat, and by Jin, Sun, and Sayid to dock the sailboat. It appears to be grown over and in a state of general dis-use, though looks can be deceiving. [Source]

Posted on by — 6 Comments

LOST Revelations and Questions

So, why are The Others so certain that the sail boat would just sail in circles? "sailing in circles will keep them busy." And why does Colleen think that the sail boat could find them. Didn’t the season opener show the village inland? What is the "us" that they might find. Why would Ben so easily give Micheal a boat then get so eagar about the sail boat?

What was Jin’s relation to Sun’s lover? When he saw the picture, his face lit up with recognition.

I thought the young guy in the cage that tried to escape was a plant to mess with Sawyer’s mind but the appearance of Alex with concern for him negates that. So, who is he? The work area with Kate and Sawyer isn’t just a labor camp. They are studying blueprints.

The dock seen at 17:10 is labled Sala Ferry (I think) – the lettering is a little cryptic. Little side note. Using gas to start a fire is dangerous, unnecessary and typically ineffective. Sayid should have been able to start the signal fire without the gas.

More after I make a programming milestone…