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Friday Fun List – Some More Google+ Resources

Anybody still using Google+? 😉  The site definitely seems to have cooled over after the big buzz of its launch (my all-time favourite G+ post was the one Redditor who posted “This site is already dead.  Nobody’s using it anymore.” ONE WEEK after it went live!)

Anyhow, I’m still checking it regularly – beyond the few people I know on it, it’s become a really good source of tech info – both from the gurus who are active on there (Tom Anderson who founded MySpace is actually one of my favourite posters) and also from the hundreds of Redditors and MeFites who I’m following. I also have specific circles for both Google & Facebook employees (guess which one is more useful on G+?)

Plus there’s always that randomness to the content that all social networks with news streams tend to have – funny pictures and videos, random observations and updates, book and movie recommendations and so on.

Here are a few resources for G+:

Posted 19 August 2011 § FridayFunLink § Library § PopCulture § Technology ‡ Comments (0) °

What Is Your Favourite “Holy Shit” Fact?

Redditors chime in with their favourite “blow your mind” facts – some serious, some silly.  That one about there being no physical (or metaphysical) difference between the atoms in a living creature and non-living inanimate object makes sense on one level but is also sort of stunning when you think about it.

Posted 18 August 2011 § Technology ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , ,

The New Generation Of Leadership: Jaime Garcia Hosts Rathika Sitsabaiesan in Regina

Unfortunately, I’m out of town this weekend but I really wish I could take in a couple events happening this Saturday where my local provincial NDP candidate is hosting one of the dynamic new NDP MP’s, Rathika Sitsabaiesan.

This video of Ms. Sitsabaiesan’s inaugural speech in the House of Commons sends a tingle down my spine. Knowing an accomplished, funny, highly-educated, trilingual immigrant is one of my representatives in our national government? I don’t know about you but that’s my Canada and that’s damn cool!

Regina Coronation Park NDP Candidate Jaime Garcia is proud to host Rathika Sitsabaiesan, MP for Scarborough-Rouge River, and the federal NDP Post-Secondary Education Critic on Saturday, August 20th, 2011.

There are two exciting social events that will be part of this visit.

The first is a Community BBQ with Rathika on Saturday, August 20th, 2011 at 12 noon in the picnic area of Kiwanis Park. Burgers are just $2. Come on out for a fun-filled, informal meet and greet in the fresh and open air. Rathika will speak briefly on education and on politics and then she and Jaime will mingle with guests. Bring a football, a frisbee or a kite and stay for the afternoon!

The second event is a Wine and Cheese Social at the Copper Kettle starting at 6 PM, and running well into the evening. There will be plenty of delicious appetizers on hand, and another opportunity to mix and mingle with Rathika and Jaime. Tickets are just $15. For tickets or for more information, contact Rick at 539-2732.

Both events are an exciting opportunity to meet a new generation of leaders in the New Democratic Party, both federally and provincially.

For more information on Jaime Garcia, visit his website at www.jaimegarcia.ca.

What follows is some background information on Rathika:

” Rathika was born in Sri Lanka and came to Canada with her family at the age of five. Rathika’s political, social, and cultural consciousness took shape early on in her life as her parents have been community activists who worked towards the advancement and injection of Tamil culture into the Canadian fabric.

Rathika attended the University of Toronto for the first two years of her undergraduate studies, where she as he Vice-President of the Tamil Students’ Association. She then transferred to Carleton University, where she completed her Bachelor of Commerce degree. While attending Carleton University, Rathika served as a Vice-President of the Carleton University Students’ Association, as Caucus Chair of the New University Government, and as Operations Manager with the Rideau River Residence Association.

Rathika proceeded to obtain a Master’s Degree in Industrial Relations from Queen’s University, where she worked with the Service Employees’ International Union as a researcher and helped the organization to successfully launch the “Justice 4 Janitors” Campaign.

Since the age of nine, Rathika has been making a difference at the grassroots level as a volunteer and community organizer in various capacities. Her inspiration for political participation stems from the student movement, the labour movement, and pursuit of social justice. The causes which are close to her heart include poverty reduction, affordable housing, access to education, employment equity, immigration, and the preservation of Tamil language and culture.

Rathika became involved with the New Democratic Party in 2004 by volunteering in the Ed Broadbent federal election campaign. Since then, Rathika has continued her involvement with the NDP in different capacities. In the 2008 federal election, Rathika was a canvasser and campaign manager. Rathika worked at the University of Toronto Students’ Union unwil she was elected MP for the federal constituency of Scarborough-Rouge River on May 2nd, 2011.”

Posted 17 August 2011 § Politics § Video ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , ,

Peoplemov.in: Migration Flows Across The World (and The Secret to Canada’s Future Success?)

This is a pretty cool data visualization tool which shows who is moving to and from various countries in the world, top destinations and more.

This types into a recent article (which I can’t find now but there are many web sites making the same claim) that Canada needs to push its population to 100 million (from the current ~30 million) in very short order to remain competitive in the global economy.

 

 

Posted 16 August 2011 § Politics § Technology ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , ,

Music Monday – Top 20 Countdowns of the 80’s, 90’s and 00’s

A huge collection of countdown overviews for the last few decades including, for example, the year I graduated high school…

(via Reddit)

Posted 15 August 2011 § MemoryLane § MusicMonday § Video ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged:

I Will *Not* Be Asking You To Donate To The Wildrose Party Money Bomb ;-)

It’s not often that you can take credit for being the first to do something notable in Canadian history.  (Well, you could if you counted things like “first person to walk backwards down my street playing a kazoo and waving a Hamilton Tiger Cats flag.”  But, to borrow a definition from Wikipedia, that’s not really the kind of “notable” that’s actually notable.)

Anyhow, that one notable thing that I was responsible was the idea of doing what would be the first-ever political money bomb in Canadian politics.  Since then, other Saskatchewan-based politicians have tried them and I suspect there may have been other smaller, more local ones held since then as well.

But that original one for Ryan Meili’s provincial NDP leadership campaign is still one of the biggest and most successful ones ever held.  Except now there’s another contender for that title.

I was recently made aware of a Money Bomb that the Wildrose Party of Alberta is running to raise funds for their leader’s summer promotional tour.

If you’re not familiar with the Wildrose, they’re a relatively new political party that sprang up in 2007  as a blending of some former Reform/Alliance supporters and various libertarian/right-wing elements of the Alberta political scene who thought the dominant Conservative party weren’t. just. conservative.  enough!

They’ve created a money bomb and, at least in terms of pure dollars raised, topped the Meili campaign by a few thousand dollars making them the most successful money bomb in Canadian history.

(I’ll try not to sound defensive when I point out that ours was for the candidate in a leadership race instead of raising funds from supporters of an entire party, that they have an advantage of a much better web site and there are obvious inequities in terms of the fundraising potential between presumably wealthy Alberta libertarian/business-types and presumably not as wealthy Saskatchewan socialists! 😉 )

Anyhow, the staffer from the Wildrose party who contacted some of the people involved in the Meili Moneybomb for further details was sincerely complimentary towards the things Ryan did with his campaign in terms of using new technology and I will return the compliment in a slightly backhanded fashion.

Anything that helps shake up the hegemony of the Alberta Conservative Party is a good thing.  I’d love for it to come from the left (or much more likely, the centre – the current Liberal leader reminds me of Dr. Meili in many ways!) but the reality of Alberta is that they’re much more likely to go ever further right if that’s even possible!

Unfortunately, the success of the Wildrose Money Bomb may not be enough to overcome some serious other challenges the party is currently facing – financial and otherwise.

(Just heard that Dr. Meili will be speaking in my hometown of Indian Head on September 17 at a fundraiser for the local NDP candidate.  If you’re in the area, come on out!)

Posted 14 August 2011 § Politics ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , ,

Homeless Boy Stuns Korean Version of “America’s Got Talent” Reality Show

I always think these reality show stars – Susan Boyle, Paul Potts, etc. – who are dumpy looking and/or have a sob story are probably exaggerated (along with the editing and dramatic music introducing them) for maximum effect.  But if there’s even a grain of truth to stories like this one, it’s still pretty amazing…

Posted 14 August 2011 § PopCulture § Sad § Video ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: ,

Saturday Snap – Hawksley Workman at Regina Folk Fest 2011

Here’s a clip from one of the workshops held on Sunday afternoon during Regina Folk Fest…

Posted 13 August 2011 § Uncategorized ‡ Comments (0) °

Friday Fun Link – “BAR”‘s and “BEER”‘s

Great to see that my former colleagues at Southeast Regional Library have started a YouTube channel with a focus on training videos for SRL staff.  It is particularly gratifying to see that they’re still using the Branch Activity Report (BAR) that I created for our rural branches to report their ongoing activities to HQ.

My silly naming conventions didn’t stop there.  When I created the BAR, I was joking around in the staff room one day, saying I should also change the name of our Branch Expenditure Reports so that they’d be called BEER instead of BER (not that anyone called them that.).

That way, we could get after our branch librarians to “get on that BAR!” or “finish your BEER!”.  My boss, who didn’t always share my sense of humour spoke up and I thought he was going to ask me to change the names of both reports.  Instead he goes, “Oh, that’s easy.  Call it the Branch Economic Expenditures Report and you’ve got your acronym!”

He wasn’t the only one who enjoyed it.  I was recently looking back at the feedback I got when I conducted a 360 interview just before leaving SRL.  One branch librarian mentioned the BEER & BAR as a specific example of how I brought a light touch and humour to the job that they enjoyed.

Anyhow, you too can “get on the BAR” here…

Posted 12 August 2011 § Library § MemoryLane § Video § Work ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged:

Happy Belated Anniversary To Me!

Having been sick for the last couple days, I missed a pretty significant milestone that I meant to blog about.

Just over a year ago, I took the leap and moved from the blog I’d been using for four years to a new platform, a new host and a new domain.  On pretty much every level, it’s been a worthwhile move although once I got the basics set-up, I haven’t spent much time playing around and trying other extensions, themes and so on.

Also, my traffic on this blog is still 1/10 (!) of the traffic on my new one.  There’s a few reasons for this.  The old one has four years of “long tail” which means people doing general searches are approximately 4x as likely to find a relevant result from my old blog as my new one.  That one was also more of a focused blog – with the majority of the posts about libraries, library school, libraries intersecting with technology which I know makes it more appealing than the “grab bag” my current blog has become.  On that same note, the focus of my old blog means that it is still to this day a resource for new and potential MLIS students – not just those considering Western but schools across Canada who want to know what the process of completing an MLIS is like.  And unfortunately, I suspect some of the traffic being captured on that other site is  due to spammers/crawlers/Nigerian princes.

I have no idea what the future will bring in terms of my blogging.  There are days when I think about packing it all in because it feels like blogging has “jumped the shark”.  Nowadays, people spend so much time on social networks and other sites (Kevin Rose of Digg fame made headlines when he announced he was going to stop blogging and just post everything to Google+ soon after that service launched) that blogs seem to becoming the country museums – full of interesting curios and artifacts to the teeming, thriving city high rises of the social networking and other mainstream community sites.  I also haven’t done a lot to build bridges between my country blog and the city sites – I don’t actively syndicate my posts into Facebook or Twitter, I’m not on a lot of aggregators.  I don’t do much beyond basic SEO for my blog.

I don’t know – I’m from the country.  I kinda like the view here…hope you do too!  And thanks for stopping by – even though I know it’s out of your way.

 

Posted 11 August 2011 § MemoryLane § Technology ‡ Comments (0) °