Nickel and Dime Time

The average person views over 3,500 bits of advertising per day whether they like it or not. Imagine paying for each of them. My (former)cellular provider wants to change our contract and charge me $0.15 per unwanted incoming text message. If it is spam, I can let them know and they won’t charge me. Letting them know will take some of my time, more than 15 cents worth. But wait a minute, if I call to report each individual unwanted text message, that will require some time and effort to respond to each of my calls. Even if the procedure is to notify them via email, it will still cost them time and money to process. If everyone reports every text message, the unwanted ones of course, it could create a massive workload for the cellular providers. That’s just my 15 cents worth.

Protect that iPhone with

EARTH TEXTURE Abstract Texture Design by dequilla

Solar Energy for Peace

If halting climate change isn’t reason enough to push for the advancement and adoption of solar and wind power over nuclear and carbon producing processes, how about peace? Solar energy is limitless, at least in the foreseeable future; say 5 or 6 billion years. That’s a lot longer than the projection for oil reserves for the entire planet by, oh, about 5 or 6 billion years. And wind power. As long as there is a sun, there will be wind. Develop and distribute solar capabilities to all countries. Sounds counter-intuitive giving technology away but due to economies of scale, mass production of solar capturing devices would lower the component costs. Thus, giving it away to countries that had fewer resources would cost less. If all countries had sufficient solar energy there would be no need to continue developing nuclear based power sources or coal and bio-fuel for that matter. How does this pave the way for peace? Recently, Iran test fired missiles. This caused political tension and oil prices to rise around the world. The missiles by themselves are not the main cause for concern; it is the uranium enrichment process Iran says it is pursuing for energy production that has got everyone’s attention. If all countries had an adequate supply of reasonably priced solar energy, they would not need to buy large quantities of oil from potentially aggressive countries and thereby fund military “defense” systems in those countries. Less oil, more peace. The loss of economic value caused by the disuse of oil as a power source would be offset by the growing solar economy. Heat and light for your home, industry and solar powered transportation. If you wonder about the feasibility of solar energy, check out Germany. Germany is leading the way and does not seem to be suffering for it. What about the disused oil refineries? Turn them into museums as reminders of how not to treat our only planet.

GAIA THE LIVING PLANET Earth Design iPhone case

GAIA THE LIVING PLANET Earth Design by dequilla

Word

I was talking to my daughter in Germany. She is there, I’m not. We were using MSN and I remarked it was as if she were downstairs. Instant messaging is really fast, even though there is a six hour time difference between here and there. But this is not about the speed of the Internet. It is about language. I’ve always thought that it would be handy if there was a universal language. It would be really, really handy if that language were English as that is the only one I’ve been able to master (well I’m working on it). Millions may disagree but it’s my blog, get your own. From what I understand European children have the advantage of being forced to learn more than one language. This is handy as those countries are cheek-by-jowl with a lot of foreign countries that speak something else. I am jealous. When I went to school, more than a few years ago, the educational system arranged that we would get 15 minutes of French. Canadian French. The classes were forty minutes long but we got 15 minutes whether we wanted it or not. I’m sure the teachers were more than competent ‘tho I wonder who wrote the curriculum. Through grades 6 to 12, to the best of my knowledge, few of my unilingual peers rose to the aggrandized state of truly bilingual. For those who did, felicitations. Myself, I can tell you there is an autobus dans la rue, ask for a beer and ask where the washroom is. Two of these have stood me in good stead. The reason for language is to communicate. To everyone. Otherwise, have a code. Back in the old days, Esperanto, a language, was developed in 1887 by Ludwik Zamenhof with the specific intent of creating an international second language. There are an estimated 2 million speakers of Esperanto. There are nearly 7 billion people on earth. Language itself, let alone second languages may be doomed to fail. As early as 1965, The Who said “And don’t try to dig what we all s-s-say”. Prophecy or warning. Need proof of the demise of language? Check out your kids on Messenger or texting on their mobile. Leetspeak short for elite speak as defined by Mopo.ca Leet (most commonly 1337 but often also leetspeak, leetspeek, or l33t) from the phonetic form of the word "elite", is a cipher, or novel form of English spelling. It is characterized by the use of non-alphabetic characters to stand for letters bearing a superficial resemblance, and by a number of spelling changes such as the substitution of "z" for final "s" and "x" for "(c)ks". Leetspeak is traditionally used on the Internet and other online communities, such as bulletin board systems. Leetspeak is commonly used by hackers, crackers, script kiddies, and gamers. (English teachers everywhere are turning in their graves) (well, the dead ones anyway). Imagine this type of communication during the Cold War, think Dr. Strangelove or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb But who can blame the younger generations for trying to eliminate extraneous parts of language such as vowels and consonents. Try writing anything of any length on a crackberry. So while today’s languages may join the ranks of Latin and Greek, we will still be able to communicate on some level. So for now I will bid you adieu or say caio which is short for bye.

Protect your communicator with

FIREWORKS Display by dequilla