Musings

Introducing Tweets of Yore!

2009-07-16T22:53:00.002-05:00

One of the best things about Twitter is the ability to quickly share info from your life with a wide network of friends. Rather than just letting everyone know what you had for lunch - or were deciding to have for lunch, in extreme cases - you can share stuff you've learned, tell jokes and much more. I'm a fan of useless but funny bits of trivia myself:But Twitter has only been around for a few

Dream It and List It All Out

2008-12-14T23:24:00.000-06:00

I took the 43 Things Personality Quiz and found out I'm anExtroverted Money Managing Tree Hugger

2008-08-24T00:21:00.007-05:00

Who's Texting Whom at 3am?The original plan of getting Obama supporters to hand over their cellphone number in return for the promise of being the first to learn the official VP choice -by SMS, was an inspired one. This was also a vote-catching tool targeted to younger voters, especially those who believe that politicians don't get it and therefore don't deserve their vote. In this election cycle

2008-05-25T21:43:00.001-05:00

Live From Mars!The Phoenix Mars Lander has broadcast a more-or-less constant stream of messagessince landing 2 hours ago. These can be read at http://twitter.com/MarsPhoenixThis is the first instance of a NASA mission maintaining its own blog in near real time. Now that's Science Fiction!Twitter for those of you not in the know is a micro-blogging service that allows you to post SMS or Instant

2008-05-10T13:45:00.004-05:00

Fast-Tracked Council Legislation Would Close Popular Chicago Music VenuesThis is an important issue which I have only just become aware of. The Chicago city council is proposing an onerous series of changes to the legislation that governs all venues under 500 seats in Chicago. Essentially the changes are to prevent "illegal promoters" from doing business without proper licence's, background

New years Eve type survey question thingy.....

2008-01-02T11:38:00.001-06:00

Thanks to my friend Pauline, I was moved to pull together some thoughts at the dawning of this new age, I mean year.Where are you spending your New Years this year?A friend is hosting a five course dinner party for a small group of friends. Each couple/person attending has to bring a bottle of champagne.How do you usually spend New Years?With friends and wrapped up warm!What do you drink on New

del.icio.us Redux

2007-12-17T12:51:00.001-06:00

Some time back I discussed how the social bookmarking site del.icio.us has proven to be the best way to remember stuff found online. Saving a site is as easy as clicking on a "save to del.icio.us" toolbar link. Up pops a little window with the current website URL and after adding a few tags relevant to the particular content, the address is saved to your del.icio.us account. Finding it again is

Onward and Upward with the Arts: Digitization and its discontents

2007-11-27T17:47:00.001-06:00

I have a personal dream, that is, to digitize my life. Words, images and audio video of everything surrounding myself and my family. At first glance it seems doable, I have copies of almost every letter I've written and received. Copies of over 28 years of writing, fanzines, articles, books, pithy little letters of comment to other publications are all filed away in semi-archival states. Photos

Sweet Potato Is Everybody's Friend, But a Fleeting One - WSJ.com

2007-11-21T01:19:00.001-06:00

The sweet potato, or is that potatoe? is high on the list of holiday dishes at this time of year. But as we shopped today to buy all the items for our imminent Turkey Day celebration I thought about all the other vegetables I love so much. Here for all posterity is my Top 10 List:1. Sweet Potato (kumera in New Zealand)2. Regular potato3. Brussels Sprouts (am I their only fan?)4. Spinach5. Red

2007-11-07T23:45:00.000-06:00

The Biggest Problems I see With Facebook's Social Ads Program:1. Anyone can publish a Facebook *Page* claiming your brand identity2. Getting your Facebook identity to the top of the Search Results3. Controlling the level of personal user details shared with advertisers (on/off/restricted)4. The "You have to put up with ads because Facebook is provided free" argument5. Stupid users and stupid

Engagement & The Future Of Online Advertising

2007-11-07T23:37:00.002-06:00

The long-awaited announcement yesterday from Facebook detailing their new Social Ads program raises lots of interesting questions. According to guest columnist Mark Kingdom over at GigaOM there are three important trends that will shape online consumer behaviour over the next few years: time and place shifting, cause consumption and management of multiple identities. If anything I think he's

ze's page :: zefrank.com: strike day

2007-11-07T23:02:00.001-06:00

zeFrank is back! It took the Hollywood writers strike to do it, but the video blogger extraordinaire is back in the saddle for at least one day. He makes a good point when he says that the last writers strike was right before reality TV came about. You know, the type of TV where *writers* aren't needed. Maybe this time round the strike will result in video blogging being the next big, big thing.

2007-10-30T01:28:00.000-05:00

The School That Taught Me About Life (and Marbles) Celebrates its 50th JubileeTo my fellow school mates, ex teachers and everyone who has spent time at Murrays Bay School. I have fond memories of my six years at what was then known as Murray's Bay Primary (1969 through 1975). From "riding" the immobilized old red farm tractor, to the open-air assemblies in front of the original library, the

2007-10-18T12:13:00.000-05:00

What's in a Name?Last year I met another Nigel Rowe. This was the first time this has happened to me, although ever since "our" shared name was indexed by a search engine I have received odd pieces of mail detailing the lives of other Nigel Rowe's. We appear to be a varied lot: an around the world sailor, real estate consultant, non-profit professional and Internet author (me), marathon organizer

2007-08-03T11:15:00.001-05:00

I'm a Conservation International Eco-ally. What are you? Measure your ecological impact at www.conservation.org/ecofootprint! With a little more effort I could become an Eco-Warriorl however my score of 74 eco points is definitely better than the site average of 46.

2007-07-21T17:00:00.001-05:00

This photo of Mt. Everest was taken from the Space Shuttle Atlantis (Mission STS-37) in April of 1991. Fifty four years ago, Kiwi Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa guide, Tenzing Norgay, were the first to scale Earth's highest point. I believe they stuck around on the summit for only 15 minutes. These days I think you can't even stay this long due to the continual line of other Everest wannabes

2007-07-11T12:05:00.000-05:00

Will it Blend? The iPhone reduced to iSmoke

2007-07-03T12:19:00.001-05:00

Who thought the 2007 America's Cup was great TV?Yes!Yes - although Team NZ was robbedNo - I hate sports (especially sailing)No - Team NZ was robbedWho the hell wants to drink out of America's Cup?Who cares, a Kiwi won anyway! Free polls from Pollhost.com

2007-06-29T18:01:00.000-05:00

I've Finally Got One!My patience paid off and after waiting five weeks outside the Mag Mile Apple Store I got my own iPhone. I'm very happy with it and despite the steep price ($599) and the awful AT&T network, and the lack of a Sim card and the inability to take videos and numerous other missing features that are standard in many other phones, I'm glad to be a part of the Steve Jobs adoration

2007-05-24T23:17:00.000-05:00

Great Idea, Fight Spam and Digitize BooksEvery now and then a great idea is announced that makes you slap your head and exclaim "why didn't I come up with that!" If you have ever run Optical Character Recognition (OCR) on a scanned document and had to fix those words that the OCR software couldn't decipher, then you know first hand the limitations of document scanning. Now combine this thought

2007-05-14T12:23:00.000-05:00

Green Your ElectronicsAs a self-confessed gadget aficionado I am as guilty as anyone of putting bad things into the environment, but for some time now I have tried to be a responsible global citizen. Treehugger has collected together a practical and useful set of tips to help assuage the guilt. At the very least, recycle your batteries and old electronics!

2007-04-14T14:39:00.000-05:00

Video Blogging at its Best!It's not often I feel compelled to run what essentially is an advert, but zefrank needs to be seen by as many people as possible. One year's worth of his irreverent cultural and political daily video blogs can be seen here. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

2007-04-03T14:02:00.000-05:00

Google Helps You Receive the Best Possible (free) Medical AdviceYears ago when I co-authored Mosby's Medical Surfari, the foremost goal was to highlight the very best healthcare resources on the Internet. It was 1996 and most of us were just embarking upon the infobahn, new reference sites were plentiful but their quality (and authority) were very questionable. Out of over 2000 sites we surveyed,

2007-03-22T10:30:00.000-05:00

The Future Is NowThe times they are a'changing. The mystery anti-Hillary viral video released recently on Youtube "Vote Different" shows quite dramatically how the ability to influence opinion has shifted from those with money to anyone with a computer and half a clue. Who produced it? Was it the work of the Obama campaign? The answer was finally revealed today at The Huffington Post. Turns out

2007-03-19T08:53:00.000-05:00

Top 15 Truly Speculative MoviesVividly realized, speculative Earth futureConsiders "the human condition"Makes you think (more than just entertainment)Moral dilemmasIn no particular order ...The Final Cut (2004)The Thirteenth Floor (1999)Metropolis (1927)The Time Machine (1960)Bladerunner (1982)Minority Report (2002)Alien (1979)Fahrenheit 451 (1966)A Clockwork Orange (1971)2001: A Space Odyssey (