I wish I'd thought of that, geniusness! Overheard from some American tourists at a Starbucks this morning. They also claim McCain said the United States was founded as a "Christian nation". A legally secular theocracy, I must admit that's a new one to me John.
Yes Obama has fudged several things and hasn't been able to fix eight years of horror in one, but I'm still relieved beyond belief.
Kevin Rudd on the other hand…
"This is a fabrication. We all know [Australian currency] can be used to buy food, drink, houses, and cars. And it can also be used to buy drugs, guns, ammunition, and even prostitutes. Can you say that the [Aussie Dollar] is illegal and committing obscene acts?"
That in fact wasn't a quote regarding the upcoming Great Firewall of Australia, it was originally about the Great Firewall of China. That the same point can be made for both should be terrifying.
Won't make any difference of course.
Ruben Schade
Singapore and Adelaide, Australia
Planet EarthCopenhagen Summit delegates
Copenhagen, Denmark
Planet EarthTo the leaders in Copenhagen,
Regarding your abject failure in your duties.We had low hopes and expectations, and you delivered exactly what we expected. I don’t know whether it was a few of you who hamstrung the negotiations or whether you all played your own part, and to be blunt I don’t care. Collectively, the results are the same.
As supposed custodians of this beautiful planet Earth, and as supposed representitives of us, the people of Earth, you have let down your constituents in ways you apparently can’t begin to fathmon.
May you have a more joyeous holiday season than the rest of us.
Peace, health and happiness,
~ Ruben
I've studied economics extensively in school, university and by myself but I haven't really done any business studies; perhaps with these points on why current internet business still surprises me will show this! Some random observations:
New rules of business? I'm sure astute folks could cite other examples.
Some less than stellar news about Palm is being reported by Kevin Kelleher over at GigaOm.
The latest grim plot twist came last week when Palm reported its fiscal second-quarter earnings. Smartphones sold to consumers fell 4 percent from a year ago, before Palm even debuted the Pre. A costly ad campaign sank gross margins to 25.6 percent from 27.9 percent a quarter earlier.
You know who should acquire Palm? 3Com! :)
In all seriousness though, I only left high school a few years ago and while I didn't have any pressing need for a PDA I grew up tinkering around with a Palm IIIx while my friends used Game Boys and have fond memories of it. I still reckon Graffiti is the closest anyone has come to an accurate, reliable and speedy on screen character recognition system.
I have no doubt Palm engineers (even if they've all changed since then) have the gutso, imagination and talent to produce amazing hardware and software, but much like Microsoft they suffer at the hands of less than competent marketing folk. Hope the company can get its act together.
As a matter of disclosure, I've long since switched to an iPhone but my dad's still holding out for a Pre in Singapore, when they decide to ship them here (second strike against their marketers). Keep the fires burning Palm.
Had a bit of a scare with our oldest little doggie Romeo yesterday, he completely lost his usually veracious appetite and looked as though he was struggling to move. We rushed him to the vet where a blood test revealed his white blood cell count was through the roof, so he was hospitalised overnight. We were told the symptoms pointed to a a severe infection, but there was a chance he had a tumour in his liver. Needless to say, we didn't get much sleep last night worrying about it.
Fortunately he was discharged today after being placed on several vitamin drips and his blood returned to normal. We have to keep him under close observation over the next few days and have a cocktail of medications to give him, but he's already looking more like his old self. Hopefully he'll be looking as happy and silly as the photo above again soon :).
Hall and Oates famously sang there's life after high school, and I think it's safe to say there are several signs that let you know such sentiment is true. One is you graduate, two is some of your former teachers open a chain of budget laundromats that cater to people allergic to surfactants, and third is people you grew up with get married. Well, two out of three ain't bad!
It may come as a complete shock to many of you here (ha!) that I was a fairly reserved and paranoid kid in school. Most of my life until that point was spent looking after my mum and worrying about whether she'd still be alive in the morning and when I got home, so I wasn't terribly fun to be around. My sister and I coped in different ways, my solution was to keep to myself. I think most people tended to ignore me because it was easier, which looking back now I can understand!
There were a small handful of people who literally made it possible for me to get through high school, one of whom was Laura Douglass. Of all the kids at that private school who grew up getting what they wanted and not being used to being humble, she was one of the few who was a genuinely nice person. I know, I'm shocked too! When she asked how you were feeling if you looked blue you knew she actually cared about what your answer was. She was ridiculously friendly, smart, optimistic, had a wicked sense of humour (and a laugh to match!), she could play the accordion, and was a better school councillor than… well, the school councillor. Despite us having virtually no interests or anything else in common other than an obsession with silly comedy shows, I was privileged enough to have her as one of my best friends.
I can't describe it, but it was like she had this positive energy that so many other people at that school either didn't have or actively seeked to destroy to make their own shallow existences less meaningless… you know the types. Everybody knew there wasn't any point belittling Laura or people she was friends with because it would wash right over her, turn around and hit them back again!
Anyway I belabour all of this mumbling, poorly worded and insufficient for what is deserved description of Laura because I got an email from her a few days ago saying she finally got married to a strapping young chap called Sir Methodist, sorry Methorst, whom I only hope has enough energy and friendly awesomeness to keep up with her!
In case she reads any of my silly little blog here I wanted to publicly wish her all the best and to say Sir Methorst is a lucky guy. I'm glad that of all the people who I knew at that school you were one of the lucky few who managed to find happiness. Heck, you're one of the few who deserved to :).
As I have started signing all my posts, emails and other electronic whatnot of late:
Peace, health and happiness :)
~ Love Ruben
With reference to life after high school, this makes me think I need to pull my own life out of this wild plummeting tailspin its currently in and start flying up again. Which may be a problem because I don't even have a driver's licence yet, let alone an aviators licence. Uh oh, I'm going to get poked fun at for that again!
This post originally appeared on the Annexe.
According to the internal WordPress installation here, for some reason the the ID of this post is 5700 which you can confirm by going to the non-prettified address. What's more stupendously amazing is 5700 is also the model number for a sophisticated piece of equipment, the Tennant 5700 Industrial-strength Walk-behind Scrubber. Read on if you dare!
Consistent, quality cleaning results that set the standard
Just like this decade is drawing to a close and everything is infinitely more important if it has a rounded bunch of zeros at the end of it, at this 5700 mark we sit back and reflect all that we've accomplished here, with me and the writer and you as the readers and commentators… well, that didn't take long!
I kid folks, I still maintain this is one of the few blogs where the comments are usually more substantive, interesting, witty and useful than what I write here myself. You guys contain awesomeness. Thank you :).
Key available features
- The Tennant 5700 dislodges and picks up stubborn dirt, grime, oil or sand – even nuts and bolts.
- This scrubber’s got a long-lasting machine thanks to expert engineering and industrial-grade construction.
- Scrub without chemicals with ec-H2O™ electrically converted water scrubbing technology.
- Fewer empty/fill cycles and more time for cleaning with foam-based FaST® technology.
- Industry-leading engineering, industrial-grade construction and a 10/3/3 warranty on the 5700.
- Aluminum squeegee assembly and scrub heads, shock-absorbing frame and durable polyethylene construction.
- Up to 300 lb / 136 kg of down pressure with heavy-duty motor options.
- Available in disk or cylindrical scrub heads with three path widths: 28 in / 710 mm, 32 in / 810 mm or 36 in / 910 mm.
- Off-aisle power wand extends cleaning reach.
- Dual vac fan increases vacuum lift by up to 30 percent to pick up bulky, tough soils found in industrial facilities.
- Optional heavy-duty brush motors (32 in / 810 mm disk model) and cylindrical scrub heads for our best hard-surface soil removal.
- Chemical-free scrubbing and FaST foam scrubbing technologies for cleaner, higher-traction floors.
In talking to my fabulous father, he relayed that Tennant make some amazing equipment. Personally I'd love to have one of these floor scrubbers as a Segway, all you'd need is a platform to stand on and a really, really long power cable. Or maybe they could develop a solar floor scrubber I could ride around on!
You know, I really didn't know how this post was going to turn out, but I wholeheartedly approve of it. And people tell me I get off topic here, can you believe it?
Zoom zoom! Thank you.
