A Stimulus Story

It is the month of April, on the shores of the Black Sea. It is raining, and the little town looks totally deserted. It is tough times, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit.

Suddenly, a rich tourist comes to town.

He enters the only hotel, lays a 100 Euro note on the reception counter, and goes to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one.

The hotel proprietor takes the 100 Euro note and runs to pay his debt to the butcher.

The Butcher takes the 100 Euro note, and runs to pay his debt to the pig grower.

The pig grower takes the 100 Euro note, and runs to pay his debt to the supplier of his feed and fuel.

The supplier of feed and fuel takes the 100 Euro note and runs to pay his debt to the town's prostitute that in these hard times, gave her "services" on credit.

The hooker runs to the hotel, and pays off her debt with the 100 Euro note to the hotel proprietor to pay for the rooms that she rented when she brought her clients there.

The hotel proprietor then lays the 100 Euro note back on the counter. At that moment, the rich tourist comes down after inspecting the rooms, and takes his 100 Euro note, after saying that he did not like any of the rooms, and leaves town.

No one earned anything.
However, the whole town is now without debt, and looks to the future with a lot of optimism.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how the Government is doing business today.

-Thanks to Johny who once put $100 on the bar, went to the loo and was never seen again.

Clean, green mining? Yeah right.

Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee’s plans for a “stocktake” of mining opportunities in our most precious conservation land, including national parks , have deeply concerned our members. Despite subsequent attempts by the Government to play down suggestions that it will open up protected conservation lands to mining, this proposal is still very much alive. We need your help to let the Government know that our protected forests, mountains, wetlands, beaches and seafloor are too precious to be handed over to the mining industry. Please help us by emailing Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee (g.brownlee@ministers.govt.nz ) to let him know you oppose mining of our core conservation lands. You could make some of the following points:

• Mining of core conservation land will directly threaten New Zealand’s 100% Pure brand and its $20 billion tourism industry.
• Mining cannot be “surgically” carried out in fragile conservation lands – it has long-lasting and significant impacts on the environment and wildlife.
• Burning mined lignite will be a major source of the greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.

Thanks to Corona, who points out that 'If we do or say something appropriate before or when it is necessary - and that often does not require much by each person - we may avert an environmental situation in New Zealand that many do not want, and we will not be able to undo if it comes into effect.'

I'm emailing Gerry right away and so should you!

The news came from Forest and Bird enews.

Jet Powered Hurricane

This is the old and just got boring hurricane ride, famous for getting crushed by the fatty next to you then flinging your breakfast on your mum watching from the crowd.

If you're a Carnie and if you loved me like a brother - You'd bring the 'jet powered hurricane' to town. Bigger than this one please so we don't burn each others eyebrows. See video for afterburner.

Teach Me Fast

Do you shave? If this works we win!



If you get holes in the arse of your pants, you're doing it wrong..

From the Teach Me Fast Contest!

Three .orgs To Change the World

A few organisations that foster powerful change! They all use Internet to connect you to their projects and the people. The old-school of 'post and stamps' for making change are soon to be gone as we become more connected then ever before..

kiva.org lets you lend money to a specific entrepreneur, empowering them to lift themselves out of poverty.

Acumen fund Seek to prove that small amounts of philanthropic capital, combined with large doses of business acumen, can build thriving enterprises that serve vast numbers of the poor. Investments focus on delivering affordable, critical goods and services – like health, water, housing and energy – through innovative, market-oriented approaches.

The Girl Effect One of every six people in the world is an adolescent girl living in poverty. That’s 600 million people – twice the population of the United States. Each one could change our world for the better, if given the chance.

Are you affiliated with any of these yet?

Dangers in the Deep: 10 Scariest Sea Creatures

An entertaining look into the the 10 scariest sea creatures here.

I had no idea that fatal shark attacks were so low and eating blow fish puts your life is in the hands of the chef ( you really hope he's having a good day.)

Nice Parking !

When you're good at something I suggest you ride it for what you can, then apply the skills to a new thing.

I reckon daddy should buy his boy a jet-boat!

Imagine that!



(If you're reading this in your email you may need to click the title to see the video)

Witty Interludes.. Got any?

My hand has been 'held up' to provide for joke of the day. Funny, since I have joke retention levels of a deaf fish! The fix - get gathering now so I can get a holiday in later.

I've created this form so I have a place to drop and forget again. You can help to and preserve your classics forever.

Go forth! plagiarise, borrow, embellish and hit me with your jokes and other witty interludes.

Those of you that become the main contributors will be famous (in my eyes anyway) and maybe we'll all go out together for a night of shenanigans? Maybe I'll just go out alone?

Enter the form directly by clicking here, bookmark this and use it a lot.

I'll post excerpts here occasionally, but not today...

Search Bar

After a 5 minute hunt for a post I wrote last year. I decided it was time for a search tool - an easier way.

I've added a 'search this blog' widget on the blog page. Give it a crack!

(If you read this in your email inbox you'll need to click the heading or here to see the blog page.)

A Best Kept Secret - Beach Road Deli

North of Wellington you find Paekakariki, and the Beach Road Deli.

These guys are serious about quality and attention to detail. They've a kick-arse selection of fine ingredients and obvious passion for Italiano. Just try the savory pinwheel WOW this thing weights more than you'd expect. BRD do wood fired, thin crust real Italian pizza. You'd need to be somewhere in France or Italy to compare.

The last time I was there I mentioned that 'your place is a best kept secret' and I was politely asked not to kept it a secret. So here we are. Go see! tell me what you think.

When a business sets out and becomes the best at what it does, how far will you go? I often drive by 3 outlets of coffee and food for BRD. I don't even think about it.

Do you ever buy a coffee or a meal from the 2nd or third best place when #1 is just up the road?

Trying to Please

Amber sends this great quote.

'I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure - which is: Try to please everybody.' Herbert Bayard Swope

This resonates with comments made by an ex employer of mine - Alan Boyd. It was just after an irate customer had called him complaining on something I'd said or done.

More recently I failed in the parking warden department too, no new friends made there either.

How about you? Who didn't you please lately?

And the mob forms!

Seth just brought this to my attention. Rock on Seth!

Anyone recognise the beats? I want some!

Praise

Why is it that most people would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism?

See What You Get! NZ Broadband

Check this out! The State Services Commission and SilverStripe have mashed google maps to bring us the National Broadband Map, - a nice and easy way to find who's got decent data connectivity in your area - who's got fibre or radio etc. Judging by the suppliers who are not on the list, one can work out who's not being transparent about their capabilities. Genius! Hats off to you guys!

Now all we need is someone to use this as a base (it's open source) and allow the general public/user to contribute, compare the different broadband suppliers, their service, real connection speeds and costs. I'd love to know who's got a better connection in my area and tell others about mine too. Like foodspy.co.nz but for broadband with a map.

Any takers?

Google Carbon Emissions

The media is having a field-day exposing research on google as a carbon emission concern.

"Performing two Google searches from a desktop computer can generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea, according to new research."  From times online (hit this for the low-down)

Google responds by comparing a Google search with other daily activities, here's the top of it.

"Our engineers crunched the numbers and found that an average query uses about 1 kJ of energy and emits about 0.2 grams of carbon dioxide. But those raw numbers don't really put the environmental impact of searching the Internet into perspective. To add some context, below is data about the C02 impact of some everyday activities and items compared to Google searching:"

Activity	Google Searches
CO2 emissions of an average daily newspaper (100% recycled paper)	850
A glass of orange juice	1,050
One load of dishes in an EnergyStar dishwasher	5,100
A five mile trip in the average U.S. automobile	10,000
A cheeseburger	15,000
Electricity consumed by the average U.S. household in one month	3,100,000

See Google's post Energy and the Internet.

So how about what's in the technology that powers the Internet?

Here's another real insight into side effects of our technological advancements - Tantalum for example is a super capacitor used in many electronics from mobile phones to servers.    Congo knows all about Tantalum, so do the people that bring our household electronic brand names, consoles, phones, dvd players etc. 

Thanks to a greedy group of individuals we all have blood on our hands already.  Maybe the media would push that as big news?  probably not.

Slap Chop - Rap Chop

The person that brings me one of these (think birthday) gets their punch fruit slap-chopped on the house! You'll be a legend!

If pigs could fly..

On opening my complementary paper, it's obvious the real important news-on-paper is H1N1 swine flu.

We just had squeeze bacon and bacon vodka, they were cool. While what swine flu presents to us is nothing that new, it certainly is not very cool sounding.

Anyhow here's your new best mate if you're planning on keeping a low profile. No room at my place I think someone tagged the neighborhood.


View H1N1 Swine Flu in a larger map or get the low-down here

Welcome Winter - Snow flake

I once spent time on a dairy farm on the outskirts of Brough - pronounced 'bruff' near the Scottish boarders. It was cold and came with a lot of ice, snow and salty road grit. I had a few months to fill while waiting for the summer camper-van trip and with a 'what the heck' moment I was up to my ears in cow. Working my arse off on Helbeck grange, it was good comparison to working in telco.

Days were long, sunrise was late and sunset even earlier. Sun skimming the north-west horizon to be gone around 3pm. The cows were in-doors all winter. It was sub zero mostly. I once joked with the farmer that if he showed the people where their milk came from, they might not drink it. He replied, 'sadly you're probably right' Cold, hard, long days, these people are real grafters.

One afternoon it was about minus ten degrees celsius and the snow changed. It appeared to be fluffy, pop-corn like. It was as light as the air and went where the wind went rather than to the ground. It was different and I wondered why. Today I stumbled across the morphology diagram It explains a lot to the cow-cocky I once was.

Photos taken by Kenneth Libbrecht of CalTech, using a specially-designed snowflake photo microscope. Smart-guy!

If you haven't seen enough snow for a lifetime (I haven't) see his snow crystals pages.

Free Newspapers

When the news papers are gone what will the dog will pee on and what are we going to light the bbq with?

It seems that our local Dompost are getting creative in their bid to increase subscribers. Free news papers for three weeks, delivered to the door every morning with a letter offering the service of long term subscription. The letter has the usual contact details phone, fax, physical address but no email or website address. It seems that they still don't get it. Still trying to preserve the status quo. Hide the web and control the news.

The puppy dog sale
- an old story that has its merits
A couple take their children to a pet shop and are viewing the cute puppies for sale, the shop owner notices they're interested in the puppies and suggests they take one home for the weekend with no obligation to buy. Try it for free and bring it back if it doesn't work out he says. Do you think those kids are going to let Mum and Dad take the puppy back? If they walk out with that dog they're very likely to buy later.

Free news paper for three weeks could be viewed as a puppy dog sale - a desperate move, a sign that they haven't yet read the news - The news is the important part of News Paper, not the paper.

If I were our local paper I'd be leveraging my current ability to reach masses. I'd invite my readers to contribute to the massive change at hand and tell me what to do - give choice and control. I'd use the Internet to connect the people with their news and I certainly wouldn't be hiding my website address.

Fishing?

When you're passionate about something and you have skills that others don't, it's easier to do something that makes a difference, to do something good for your subject.

If you're passionate about fishing in Eastbourne Wellington, Tim has put up this fishing chart to increase your chances in getting lucky.

You might even see us here on a good day! We'll be the ones goofing off, catching really big fish and drinking the odd beer.

I have photo of a really big fish somewhere :/

People that get on in this world

The people that get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.

~George Bernard Shaw

A long Tail

A few close friends have asked me what's the point of my blog - why am I doing this?

A few reasons, here are some;

A Place to Share Ideas is for sharing things that catch my attention, humor me and are worth talking about. I'll tease and provoke. I probably enrich you with some half useful information somehow too.

I wanted a place to share ideas where you can comment, enter discussion and provoke me if you want to. It's also about something permanent that I care about - a 'tail' that will last forever. Content is mashed from news and blogs and sometimes original.

I do it because I never could before, I was unaware of the technology that makes it so easy. If you know me personally, you know my passion for new ideas, different (better) ways of doing things and that I allow good ideas to change me (for the better mostly) then I talk about them TALK, TALK, TALK! Here, you can have your say too and yes, it was a hubcap.

Seth is one switched on cookie. This is the short end of what will be a long tail.

PAY FOR USE

New Zealand's answer to ebay 'Trademe' charge $1.99+tax per minute for ph support via a 0900 ph number.

Today, I reluctantly called the number. I needed to move a pin locating my parents property for sale on Google maps. It was showing the property was in the ocean miles away right on the Interislander ferry route.

After two rings a local sounding guy answered - after two rings! We fixed and confirmed the problem fix in less than three minutes.

Compare this to:
I called my telco with a question, waited 45mins and got disconnected. I called again, another 35mins pass. I explain what just happened and without empathy are told to call someone else and confirm the problem isn't theirs and call back.

A friend of mine called the same telco out of business hours with an issue. He went through the interactive voice recordings and spoke clearly into the voice recognition only end with a recording saying 'all our customer service are busy right now, please call back later' - disconnected.

If the telco offered me a pay for use service I'd be happy for it. When I need it I'd pay. 1.5 hours of my time is worth a lot and now I resent them for wasting my time. Imagine, they could charge me to fix their problem.....

Question: If you need service would you pay or rather see the call centre costs built into the price you pay?

Who is dis Nikki?

A real tear jerker with a few real oh no! moments.



As our world gets smaller and more transparent and people are more connected than ever before there is less room for the Raj and more for the dj snake to undo the untrue. A great example of what I'm sure is more to come.

So what happened to Jasmine, Raj and Nikki? I reckon Raj went up shit-creek in a barbed-wire canoe - without a paddle! As for Jasmine and Nikki I heard a rumor they were seen discussing the problem here.

Any ideas?

Stop on Red Signal and The Big Mac

Driver parks on 'stop on red signal' - Wellington Airport

When we work to the status quo - we don't have to think a lot. We do as we're told and the job gets done - everyone is happy. There's little room for change, until someone does something like seek a cheeky place to park the car. On the 'stop on red signal' (please post culprits name or email address in comments below)

Jim Delligatti - one of Ray Crocs' earliest MacDonald's franchise holders didn't do what he was told. He experimented and invented a new burger - The Big Mac. He went one step further and put it on the menu.

Lucky for him the burger was a hit and was rolled out to the other restaurants in 1968. It's well known worldwide and often used as a symbol of American capitalism. The Economist has used it as a reference point to determine the cost of living in different countries — the Big Mac Index — since it is so widely available and is comparable across markets. This index is sometimes referred to as Burgernomics.

I'm not suggesting you run the next red light you see or eat burgers, but to be mindful that what you are asked or shown to do isn't always what is wanted from you. Sure, your boss wants you to do your job, but she also wants you to find something new, a better way of doing things, be a champion and bring change for the better even if she didn't ask you to. What could you do?

Future Full of Newspaper? - Not if Google Can Help it.

It amuses me that many newspaper giants are in trouble after they kinda overlooked the Internet as a news delivery tool of today and tomorrow. Many newspapers still think the 'paper' is the important bit of newspaper. While the Internet undoes the old and brings in the new here's an exception: The Printed Blog.

"The Printed Blog is an independent media outlet that aggregates user-generated content from the Internet and publishes twice daily via print. The result is a revolutionary newspaper that reads and functions like a web feed – yet can still be enjoyed on the train or spread across the breakfast table.

The selection of content in The Printed Blog is based solely on the votes of readers and their geographic location. In such a way, The Printed Blog revolts against the top-down, ‘one size fits all’ model of newsprint, as we know it. Instead of one paper serving hundreds of thousands of people, as is often the case, THE PRINTED BLOG publishes many localized editions based on what a community declares is important to them."

Maybe this will slow the Decline of printed news see here for what Google does to newspaper mills.

Unidentified Flying Object

This is an unidentified flying object. It was not a plane. It was seen flying over Karehana Bay today at about 9.06am. While driving to the asian vege markets I was quick enough to take this photo on my phone camera. It was only there for a matter of seconds then it was gone.

What is this? Who do you tell about this kind of shit? I figure everyone.

First man to fly with a jet-powered fixed-wing apparatus

Swiss pilot Yves Rossy, the world's first man to fly with a jet-powered fixed-wing apparatus strapped to his back, flies during his first official demonstration, on May 14, 2008 above Bex, Switzerland. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images)

How many people would have said this wasn't possible?

He went on to fly the english channel from Calais to Dover in September 2008. (35KM in 13 mins)

I found the pic on this great photo blog here

Want more?

50 people, one question

While working on what to do this year, I've chosen answers to these questions; What do I want to be doing - by when and how much (if any) finance is needed?

When you choose a destination with reason you get interesting character enriching side effects; Belief, hope and passion to name a few.

You see it in action within the '50 people, one question' series - Inspiring stuff to watch! Follow them here.

One thing I'm doing this year is to continue developing the choice theme.












Sorry mum, I know you have dial up and this is full of video.

Build a Place Fit for Creativity

Took me a few days to locate. I was searching for this and gave up before posting the monkeys. Someone shared this video before I was blogging and since I'm no fan of forwarding emails it stopped there.

Do any of you know of anyone employed or running an organisation that thinks like this?

How would this approach change your daily grind? Some of you are doing a few of these things already but not all of them at a guess. I'm interested...

View more presentations from gamages. (tags: offices creativity)

Generation Y

A friends employer admits they're finding it more difficult to motivate and retain staff from generation y.

I wonder if they have thought like this..

You are not a monkey nor am I suggesting your employer hire these guys to do what you do. Maybe they need to do something different though.

What would you do?

When organisations like Acumen Fund gain momentum, peoples lives change for the better. Just one person is all it takes. When one person focuses their skills toward making a real difference, the impact can be massive.

http://tinyurl.com/cyfs57

Dog Training

Love The Photocopier

I've been pondering where I could go with the blog - This place to share ideas.....

Before I do anything real profound check this out!

Any ideas?

Video in a video

Wow. This is a little crazy. Those clever Stanford types have created some software that enables video to be embedded within another video. Like in-game advertising but for real world video that (from the video below) looks as though it blends pretty seamlessly with the original content. Question is though - do we want our content blended with adverts? Or are there other uses for this? Whatever, it looks pretty cool to me.

Soundtrack to your life....

Recently over a few beers, wine and other concoctions, a handful of us landed on the topic of personal theme music and what would that be like? I was quickly referred to a family guy episode where peter has a genie with some wishes and promptly uses one to have his own theme music.

See it here
Family Guy - Peter gets his own theme music
note: I dont suggest the over viewing shown at the end of the video but you're welcome to watch

Anyway I've been quizzing the folk around me on what would their soundtrack be. They're working it. I'm guessing we'd want to have many, like Peter has but less annoying.

Moving along, I found this app for the Iphone; RjDj.

RjDj is mainly listened to with headphones. Think of it as the next generation of walkman or mp3 player. The listening experience of RjDj is similar to the effects of drugs. Drugs affect our sensory perception, so does RjDj. RjDj is a digital drug which causes mind twisting hearing sensation.



Would you put mike and his toys on your invite list? and what are you listening to right now?

See his original post is here. http://rjdj.me/what/

Thats not right !

Far out ! While browsing online we're often in a hurry - clicking from page to page, rejecting stuff and accepting stuff. This leads to us accepting stuff that aren't quite right. Ever incorrectly diagnosed an ailment using google? Ever found supporting information to a theory online only to find you were made wrong by a credible source later?

Watch out for the internets spiders they're waiting for you!

If you're receiving this via email subscription your email client may not display the image. Click the heading.

Fastet-growing sport in Norway

Mikey shared this with me today and WOW!

Life insurance optional...

http://tiny.cc/dMIey

Cheers Mikey!

Turkeys off to Wanaka

The Turkey eggs have been claimed by a person called 'chicken freak' and shipped to Wanaka - a classy place I've never seen! Now they have a fighting chance of survival. I could have left them road-side for the rats and birds but I didn't. A little effort for what could be a great outcome.

What do you do?

See the poll.

Kiss my black ads - (kick this)

This spot, created by AMV BBDO for Choice FM, was part of the London's radio station's on-going campaign to encourage 'Peace on the Streets' in the black community. It is beautiful in its intensity as well as its message. I dare you to be able to watch it just once.

Download youtube video

Here's an idea

You can download a copy of anything on youtube by adding 'kick' before youtube.

Have a copy of what you like. What would that be I wonder?

Instructions here http://kickyoutube.com

I'll share one with you soon that you may want to kick.

Lip Balm Testing

Never wears thin on me.....

Turkeys in the wine box....on the roadside

I found a box on the roadside yesterday. On a closer inspection it's labeled '12 x turkey - Debbie' A few speckled eggs are scattered around! Who's this Debbie? where are these eggs going?

Turkeys make no sense to me, they talk nonsense, chase kids, don't taste that great and somewhat ugly.

This isn't Dr. Seuss's 'Horton hatches the Egg' Where Horton the elephant is duped into hatching lazy mayzie's egg while she 'takes a long break' I'm simply trying to find the rightful looser or at least find a clucky chicken to be surrogate mother.

They were not in incubation due to the packaging and if fertile are likely to be good for some weeks yet. Turkeys eggs last longer than most...

Originally they were carefully packed in shredded paper in individual compartments. There might have been 12 but now there is 8 and I haven't done any baking.....yet


Turkey for Christmas anyone? Know anyone with Chickens we could slip these little horrors under? Please help the funny birds.....

This is not a clucky chicken.

Tui, Taking the Risk and Enjoying the Payoffs

Dominion Brewery's 'Tui' has taken some big risks with their brand over recent years and it's paying off. As an old Wairarapa boy this news from Stuff today amazes me.

BRAND SUCCESS
Tui HQ turnover more than $1.25 million. Clothing, merchandise and food brings in another $1.5 million. Tui Brewery receives about 35,000 visitors a year. Tuimato sauce sells 7000 bottles a week, second only to Watties. More than 5000 Tui pies produced weekly.

I've a soft spot for the ole Indian Pale Ale. Mainly due to a localised tax loophole, during my teenage years, making a 12 pack of Tui a good few dollars cheaper than its nearest rival. Any alcohol traversing the Rumutaka Ranges from Wellington Port got extra taxation. Mangatainoka - the home of Tui brewery - was exempt... Good for them and good for teenagers weaning off mums home cooking onto beer and bbq.

Low cost Tui and its bi-product 'empties' littered the first abode I shared with like minded folk. We didn't have Tuimato sauce but of course we did have Watties - it was all good! At the time Tui was the cheaper option without the heavy branding we see today. The statement we made then by drinking the beer was different than those who drink it now.

The Stuff article highlights the posture of the DB commercial manager, Nick Rogers. "There are 101 ideas out there it's just about having the balls to see them through," he said. "It's amazing what people are willing to buy if you slap the Tui brand on it. I mean, Tui pies? Who knows, maybe we will have Tui ice-cream next."

101 ideas out there? Looks like we're far from hearing the last word from this powerful brand. What was once a low-end player now means a lot to its market.

Tui is living proof that taking the risks, challenging the status quo and doing things differently can pay off - big time!











Who knows what's next on the 101 list, 'Tui power' for household energy? Your guess is as good as mine...

One thing is for sure, Tui has a thriving audience - a tribe of at least 35,000. They have something in common - they all like beer and they have the places to meet and share their interest -bars and Tui HQ. They can even get married (yep, they do weddings at the brewery)! We'll keep following if DB don't burn us on the way. Now it depends on what Tui 'have the balls' to do next.

What would you have the Tui brand on?