When you’re not working, you have a lot of time on your hands, as I do now. So I decided to take the Bing Google Challenge. This is an online side-by-side comparison test that Bing is offering to get us to think of them more often – when googling.
For those of you with actual jobs, you may never even have heard of the “Bing It On” Bing Google Challenge until now. But I assure you that it exists, and that I took it.
Here’s how the Challenge works: Bing lets you enter your own search queries (it also provides samples you might use), and then lets you see the search engine results from both Bing and Google, right next to each other, without telling you which is which. All you have to do is select which search engine results you like best.
My Bing Google Challenge results?
(Please see end of article for important update.)
After coming up with what I thought were some pretty good test search questions, based on things that I care about, Continue reading »
I just found a new show that blows my mind. In fact, I had to look twice at the listing. Yup…ABC has a new television show where parents actually bet on their babies to win prizes. Now isn’t that something you want to grow up and one day find out about!
Look…I watch some pretty bad TV shows. Ones that I know probably set my brain’s development back at least a few years. But this is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen on TV – and I’ve watched Sean from The Bachelor as a dancing “star” on Dancing with the Stars.
Maybe it’s a joke. I know it’s not April Fool’s Day, but maybe they are going to stop near the end of it and tell us they’ve been pulling our collective legs.
Ok. Now a father walks his kid into the “baby dome” where we will watch to see if he lets go of a ball. Continue reading »
I’ll get to less-obvious reasons that I still embrace the church of sports, despite the many many problems and flaws. But first….
The video above shows one of the most exciting come-back moments ever in baseball, when the New York Mets won the World Series in 1986 in the bottom of the 10th, in what seemed to be a no-brainer win for the Boston Red Sox. This last-minute win was a breathtaking. eye-popping conclusion many of us will never forget.
Not only was it great to see our (finally) amazin’ Mets win the entire Series, but this was a moment to remember for anyone who thinks their own game is lost. These Mets never gave up, even when the odds were stacked against them. It’s not about the odds, they might tell us. It’s about knowing, in any moment no matter what anyone tells you, you can still change things around for yourself – and for your team.
RubySchooZ, on her new blog A Thyme of Peas, just posted about a worldwide energy-saving event taking place on March 29, 2008. Borrowing from her words:
You can make a difference in helping to get others to take notice of the importance of saving energy by joining us in the “Earth Hour 2008″ campaign. The central goals for Earth Hour 2008 campaign are to help get as many people, houses, communities and businesses to turn off their lights on March 29th, 2008 from 8pm–9pm (local time).
The main goal of this campaign is to help make a bold statement that the climate changes we are facing are very real and that something as simple as turning out our lights is an important thing that is easily enough done and can truly make a difference.
I’m joining you, Ruby. Thanks for letting us know and thanks for your great new blog. I can’t say it any better.
How about you my fellow New Yorkers? (And anyone else of course.) Want to join us from 8-9 pm? It’s an easy way to make a statement and see what else life has to offer when the lights are off.
The event was created by the World Wildlife Fund chapter in Sydney Australia in 2007 and, according to the event website:
More than 100 cities across North America will participate, including the US flagships Atlanta, Chicago (your city rocks Terry B.), Phoenix and San Francisco – as well as Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.
Even though my own fabulous home town New York City is NOT yet an official participant, I would love to see all of us join in big time! Mayor Bloomberg talks about conservation and congestion pricing, but where will he be when the lights go off? And why aren’t we one of those cities?
Hey…let’s show the world we do care, ok? My lights will be off. Please join me.
Thanks again, Ruby. You lead the way, grrrl!
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For more information about the event and its origins:
Seems Dick Cheney thinks President Bush is suffering more than the families of the 4000 Americans killed. (Not to mention all the others killed and maimed during this horrible war, as well as their families.)
“The president carries the biggest burden, obviously,” Cheney said. “He’s the one who has to make the decision to commit young Americans, but we are fortunate to have a group of men and women, the all-volunteer force, who voluntarily put on the uniform and go in harm’s way for the rest of us.”
Poor President Bush. Oh…there was some mention of the sacrifice the families have made too. But there was also a clear message in the statement that they are all volunteers. Ah…yes. So the burden for the families is lessened by that, is it? And the President, forced to make all those hard decisions, is the one suffering the most?
I think not Mr. Cheney. You should be ashamed of yourself for what you just said. As if the pain weren’t enough for the families, this is just rubbing salt into their wounds. And into the real wounds of all those living the rest of their lives psychologically and physically disabled because of a war you forgot to adequately plan.
What were you thinking?
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To see what the National Priorities Project estimates
the dollar cost of the Iraq war to be as of this moment:
With recent breathtaking events bringing the once-mighty Bear Stearns to its knees and shaking financial markets to the core, I can’t help remembering a time when the banking industry was fairly stodgy, operating on slim profit margins and an entrenched policy of conservative behavior. (Not that there weren’t occasional rule-benders.)
For many years, banking was mostly a sleepy enterprise, with deals being done that in no way rivaled the excitement and risk of Wall Street (investment banking).
Then Glass-Steagall crumbled. For those who don’t know, the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 separated investment banking and commercial banking activities to try to prevent the great crash of 1929 from ever happening again. It also lowered risk for investors through the protective barriers it mandated.
The crumbling actually began earlier, but sped up in the mid-1990s as bank holding companies began hungrily acquiring investment banks. In 1999, The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act was passed by Congress to legitimize the acquisitions and dealings that were already happening. It repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, opening up competition among banks, securities companies and insurance companies. Continue reading »
Something is about to happen in New York that I find inspiring. And it’s being brought to us as a result of one of the most shocking and uninspiring political miscalculations I’ve ever seen.
We just witnessed the sad downfall of Governor Eliot Spitzer – not because of his policies or even his well-known contentious personality, but because this bright, talented man and former whiz-kid prosecutor thought he could get away with being a client of a call girl ring. For god’s sake…he had prosecuted call girl rings and even ran on that experience!
New Yorkers were understandably stunned by this. Many of us feel deeply let down by the man we thought, at worst, was a bit too hard-headed and unwilling to compromise his very stringent principles. We feel let down by the faith we still had in him, even after the way he stumbled when he first took office. What he did left us all shaking our heads.
In Greek tragedy, the fatal flaw most often leading to a hero’s demise was hubris, excessive arrogance or pride. One well-known example, Sophocles play Oedipus Rex, is about the tragic downfall of a man who was blinded by hubris to the truth of what he was doing. Just like Eliot Spitzer.
Ironically, his Lieutenant Governor, David Paterson, is blind – legally blind. But Paterson seems to be going into his new role as Governor of New York with his eyes wide open, Continue reading »
So it turns out the girl who was in Hillary’s infamous 3 am phone call ad is all grown up (the commercial used stock footage) and she supports Barack Obama. And she’s letting everyone know. Not only that…but she wasn’t really asleep. (-;
Casey Knowles, now 18, absolutely hates that her image is being used for what she calls “fear mongering.” I couldn’t agree more. I’m not sure I want the same person (who thinks it’s ok to use the very same tactics Republican do) answering that phone AT ANY TIME and making decisions for us.
Will her decisions really be the best for US or will they be made to enhance her own political viability? And considering what we’ve seen so far, can we really expect anything new and different from a Hillary Clinton administration? We only have her willingness to follow the same old methods of campaigning as our answer. But for me, it’s troubling.
Found a cool website called The Story of Stuff that makes you think twice about all those gadgets we buy. Somehow we’ve come to think of them as “must haves” – but seriously…do we really need all this stuff?
In a short video, Annie Leonard looks at the life cycle of goods, from extraction to production to distribution to consumption to disposal. How many high-tech doo-dads do you consider absolutely positively necessary? Have you bought into the idea that if you don’t have the latest version of clothes or shoes or that ultra-hot new cell phone, you can’t be cool? Do you judge yourself on whether you have what everyone else does? More than ever, people seem ready to sign up for the latest-and-greatest trends just to be like their friends.
Now I know our economy thrives on this kind of stuff and many even feel it’s our patriotic duty to do so. (Remember President Bush after 9-11?) And of course businesses design products in ways that make us want to get new versions all the time. I love Annie’s take on what she calls “perceived obsolescence” which is about being sold on the need for new when old would be just fine. This is in contrast to the long-accepted “planned obsolescence” (which still exists) where companies make things that can only last so long, driving the need for replacements. We’re now throwing away lots of stuff that works just fine. And it’s you and I who have to pay the bills.
The ironic thing is that, in search of bigger homes and more cool technology and the trendiest fashions, we are working harder than ever before and have less leisure time to enjoy all our stuff. And when we do have free time, shopping is one of our main leisure activities. Continue reading »
Ok. This story caught me completely by surprise. It seems there are people who breed pigeons called roller pigeons to
“carry a genetic trait that causes them to stop flying and tumble in the air before righting themselves and carrying on. These “roller pigeons” are flown in competitions and scored by judges who rate the birds on the quality of the “roll” and other factors. Of course, the pigeon rolling through the air looks like crippled and vulnerable prey to a hawk, falcon, or other bird of prey. Many of these pigeon enthusiasts have been routinely killing raptors in an attempt to protect their roller pigeons.”
I got this from an Audubon Society alert. Even though the issue was first raised almost a year ago, these “hobbyists” are still killing raptors. Continue reading »
We have more incarcerated people in numbers AND percentage than any other country. Any other country! And, according to today’s story in the Washington Post, “One in nine black men age 20 to 34 is behind bars.” What an unconscionable loss to society.
This is staggering. And shameful.
Sure. Locking up tons of people will help keep crime down. But seriously…can’t we see something is very wrong with this picture? Do we really have the worst people on the planet?
Of course not. But I think this points to the hard truth: we are ignoring the root causes – and they won’t go away until we do something major that gets at the real problems and disparities. It’s not about locking more people up…it’s about jobs and opportunity and overcoming class and other barriers. It’s about that very small, recently much-ridiculed word: hope!
And it probably also has something to do with our core values, Continue reading »
Our friend Lena has been talking about this for months. A picture is worth a thousand words:
Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut just announced he is endorsing Barack Obama. Dodd is a well-respected senior member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs.
They look strong together, don’t they? Chris Dodd has oodles of wisdom and experience, foreign relations and military policy expertise – and he thinks Obama is the guy!
Sure would make a nice running mate for the Obama ticket.
For almost 10 years, we watched Milburn Drysdale, a gray-suited, money-hungry banker, do whatever was needed to keep his richest depositors, the Clampetts, in Beverly Hills and firmly deposited in his bank. He often had to humiliate himself just to keep their business. And sometimes he even bent bank policy a bit. (Sometimes more than a bit.)
That was back when the banking industry was fairly stodgy, operating on slim profit margins and an entrenched policy of conservative behavior. (Not that there weren’t occasional rule-benders like our Milburn.)
For many years, banking was mostly a sleepy enterprise, with deals being done that in no way rivaled the excitement and risk of Wall Street (investment banking).
Then Glass-Steagall crumbled. (The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 had separated investment banking and commercial banking activities to try to prevent the great crash of 1929 from ever happening again, by lowering risk for investors through protective barriers between different types of financial institutions.)
My good pal, J, doesn’t think much of Barack Obama. Today she sent me a New York Daily News opinion piece by Charles Krauthammer, Time for a Rude Awakening, basically calling Obama a cult leader who is weaving a spell on poor, easily led, gullible Americans. (Hmmm…I think we’ve just been through seven years of that.)
I want to share what I wrote my pal (with a few edits):
Hi J!
I can certainly understand there are many questions about who Barack Obama really is and what he can do for us. We should absolutely ask these questions about any candidate who might be our president, no matter how long he or she has been in the public eye.
What bothers me about the Krauthammer piece is that it feels like he is playing what I’ll call the cult card. Turning passion and excitement and a feeling of hope that is drawing young people to vote in record numbers into a bad thing by giving it a scary label. That’s an old political trick.
I would guess that he and the Daily News have their own political agendas. They do back Hillary after all. Could they be playing the only card they’re comfortably allowed to play, the cult card? Continue reading »
Barack Obama had a great day on Super Dooper Tuesday. But there are still many who “just don’t get him”.
We have so many real, in-our-face problems and we’re looking for real, immediate solutions. That’s understandable. And while Barack tells us he can get us there, he won’t capitulate by simply offering media-friendly versions of easy answers. That’s one of the reasons I like him so much. But that’s also one of the reasons he has people calling him empty-handed.
People ask “What will he do for us? Words and hope can’t put food on my table.” No, and neither will easy answers that sound great in sound bytes but fall short in reality. It takes a strong, sincere person to honor that.
Barack Obama has something much more important than easy answers: he is daring to ask different questions – really intelligent questions that look at problems from different angles.
I’ve made a good living as a business consultant helping to change organizations and internal processes – and I am not a traditional consultant by any means. Just like Barack, I’m not afraid to try to reframe original questions to help get us to real, structural solutions. And for me, that’s what Obama offers.
Solutions to complex problems do not have easy answers. And many of our problems are intertwined with other issues, not all apparent at first glance. We need someone who can pull together, inspire, and lead a team of bright, energized people who have a vision that takes into account all the pieces and all the ways they connect with each other. And we need someone who gets that if we have a solid, well-crafted larger vision, we CAN institute some solutions now and the rest in phases – interlocking solutions designed to eventually help alleviate the deeper problems.
And I believe Barack gets this and will do all he can (and we can) to work for real, lasting change – not the kind that just gets you votes and applause in the short run.
Politics isn’t easy. Either is change. I know that. I’ve seen solutions for change work and I’ve seen others collapse under their own weight. And often the only difference is someone at the outset forgot to ask the right questions – or challenge the long-held status quo. No matter what polls are saying.
I’m not voting for a bag full of predetermined answers (although he already has a solid take on the issues and can hit the ground running). I’m voting for someone who will roll up his or her sleeves, gather together bright minds, and not be afraid to ask lots of tough questions while looking for new solutions – solutions that take in the best ideas from all sides. And for me, (although I believe Hillary Clinton can also do the job) that person is best exemplified by Barack Obama.
Of that, I have no question.
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Not directly related, but still one of my favorite speeches about how you get things done in politics. From The American President:
Something is about to happen in New York that I find inspiring. And it’s being brought to us as a result of one of the most shocking and uninspiring political miscalculations I’ve ever seen.
